
Class 
Book 






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WC'4 



COPXRIOHT DEPOSIT 



BOOKS COMPILED BY LADIES OF 
THE FABIOLA HOSPITAL AS- 
SOCIATION. 



BORROWINGS. A collection of favorite quota- 
tions. Cloth, illustrated, $1.25; plain edition, 
75c; ooze leather, $1.50. 

MORE BORROWINGS. A sequel to "Borrow- 
ings." Cloth, 75c; illustrated edition, $1.25; 
ooze leather, $1.50. 

THOUGHTS. A book of beautiful quotations. 
Cloth, illustrated, $1.23; ooze leather, $2.00. 

FOR THY GOOD CHEER. A new book of ideal 
thoughts. Cloth, illustrated, $1.25; ooze leather 
$2.00. 



DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
23 E. 20th Street New York 



There are only two things that justify one in pre- 
senting a new book : one is that he has something new 
to tell, the other is that he can tell the old things with a 
new effectiveness because of better arrangement, or 
newer point of view. — Francis Bellamy. 




HENRY VAN DYKE 



w 



HO looks to heaven alone to save his soul, 
May keep the path but will not reach the yoal, 
But he who walks in lore may wander far, 
And God will briny him where the blessed are. 



jfor T£\>$ (3ooti Cfyttx 



A COLLECTION OF 
HELPFUL AND BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Selected and Compiled 

by the 

Ladies of the Fabiola Hospital Association 

Oakland, California 



mew jgovk 

C^e ©oDQe ^ubltstymg Company 

/nbafeers of beautiful ffioofcs 

23 East 20tb Street 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooles Received 
AUG 9 1904 
Copyrfeht Entry 

QAA * e k-3~Ho + 



CLASS 0- XXo. No. 
I COPY B J 



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The compilers beg to tender grateful appre- 
ciation to Edwin Markhamand McClure, Phillips 
& Company, for the use of selections from "Lin- 
coln and Other Poems," and to Charles Wagner 
for selections from "The Simple Life;" to Dodd, 
Mead & Co., for selections from Hamilton Wright 
Mabie's "Before My Library Fire," "In the Forest 
of Arden"and other publications; to Lyman Ab- 
bott, David Starr Jordan, Horace W. Dresser, 
Henry van Dyke, William R. Hearst, the San 
Francisco Examiner, and many others, for the 
use of poems and selections of which they own 
the copyright. 

Copyright, 1903 by 

Jessie K. Freeman, Evelyn Stevens Wilson 

and Sarah S. B. Yule 

[New Edition, June, 1904] 
Copyright'. 1904 by 



Jessie K. 



Freeman, Evelyn Stevens Wilson 
and Sarah S. B. Yule 



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A happy-tempered bringer of the best. 

— Browning. 



(7) 



For Thy Good Cheer 



Friends give flowers 

To mark the hours 
Of changing seasons as they roll — 

Thoughts we give, 

By them we live, 
And thoughts are blossoms of the soul. 

—M. A. E. Benton. 



For Thy Good Cheer n 



Others shall 
Take patience, courage, to their heart and hand 
From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer, 
And God's grace fructify through thee to all. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



For Thy Good Cheer 13 



"Good morrow is glad Christmas Day, 

To you my happy greeting ; 
All Yuletide blessings with you stay, 

E'en though the year be fleeting. 
May you know health and happy days, 

Throughout the year that's dawning, 
And walk in pleasant ways, 

Until next Christmas morning." 

"A bright New Year and a sunny track 

Along an upward way, 
And a song of praise on looking back, 

When the year has passed away, 
And golden sheaves, nor small, nor few ! 

This is my New Year's wish for you !" 

"Easter is becoming a universal festival, because 
more and more it expresses a universal hope." 



14 For Thy Good Cheer 

"The character of our thinking determines the na- 
ture of our ideals." 

There is no day too poor to bring us an opportunity, 
and we are never so rich that we can afford to spurn 
what the day brings. Opportunities for character al- 
ways bloom along the pathway of our duty and make 
it fragrant even when it is thorny. 

— Samuel J. Barrows. 

It is almost always when things are all blocked up 
and impossible that a happening comes. If you are 
sure you are looking and ready, that is all you need. 
God is turning the world round all the time. 

—•A. D. T. Whitney. 

I am glad to think 

I am not bound to make the world go right, 
But only to discover and to do, 
With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints. 

— Jean Ingelow. 

No greater fortune can befall a child than to be born 
into a home where the best books are read, the best 
music interpreted, and the best talk enjoyed, for in 
these privileges the richest educational privileges are 
supplied. —Hamilton Wright Mabie. 



For Thy Good Cheer 15 



Turn not in vain regret 

To thy fond yesterdays, 

But rather forward set 

Thy face toward the untrodden ways. 

Open thine eyes to see 

The good in store for thee, — 

New love, new thought, new service too 

For Him who daily maketh thy life new. 

Nor think thou aught is lost 

Or left behind upon the silent coast 

Of thy spent years : 

Give o'er thy faithless fears. 

Whate'er of real good, — 

Of thought, or deed, or holier mood, — 

Thy life hath known, 

Abideth still thine own, 

And hath within significance 

Of more than Time's inheritance. 

Thy good is prophecy 

Of better still to be. 

— Frederick L. Hosmer, 



16 For Thy Good Cheer 

The best is yet to be 

The last of life, for which the first was made. 

— Browning. 

This is eternity noiv; you are sunk as deep in it, 
wrapped as close in it as you ever will be. The future 
is an illusion ; it never arrives ; it flies before you as you 
advance. Always it is to-day — and after death and a 
thousand years it is to-day. You have great deeds to 
perform and you must do them now. 

— Charles Ferguson. 

"There is not the slightest question to-day in the 
minds of the really intelligent that thought is a vital 
force — as powerful as electricity, though slower in its 
results." 

Whom the heart of man shuts out, 
Sometimes the heart of God takes in, 
And fences them all round about, 
With silence 'mid the world's loud din. 

— James Russell Lowell. 

Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but 
health of body consists in circulation, and sanity of 
mind in variety or facility of association. We need 
change of objects. Dedication to one thought is 
quickly odious. — Emerson. 




GOETHE 



H 



E who has learnt on solid grounds to 
put some value on himself, seems to 
have renounced the right of under- 
valuing others. 



For Thy Good Cheer 17 



When God commands to take the trumpet 
And blow a dolorous or thrilling blast, 
It rests not in man's will what he shall do 
Or what he shall forbear. 

— John Milton. 

God, who registers the cup 
Of mere cold water for His sake 

To a disciple rendered up, 
Disdains not His own thirst to slake 
At the poorest love that ever was offered. 
And because my heart I proffered 
With true love trembling at the brim, 
He suffers me to follow Him. 

— Browning. 

Where'er a noble deed is wrought, 
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 

Our hearts in glad surprise 

To higher levels rise. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls 
Into our inmost being rolls, 

And lifts us unawares 

Out of all meaner cares. 

— Longfellow. 



1 8 For Thy Good Cheer 

Genius seems to be allied to immortal youth. Goethe 

at eighty-four had the same deep interest in life that 

he felt at thirty or forty; and Gladstone at eighty-six 

is one of the most eager and aspiring men of his time. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 

"A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a 
man ; kites rise against and not with the wind." 

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask 
no other blessedness. He has a work, a life purpose ; 
he has found it, and will follow it ! — Carlyle. 

"We cannot help liking positiveness ; the man who 
wilfully dangles in the air, hooked like a Hindu fakir, 
resting neither in heaven nor on the earth, is not a 
sight to inspire enthusiasm in others or to do any 
good." 

"How soon the millennium would come if the good 
things people intend to do to-morrow were only done 
to-day." 

Though we should be grateful for good houses, there 
is no house like God's out-of-doors. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Don't make too much of the faults and failings of 
those around you — even be good to yourself, and don't 
harry your soul over your own blunders and mistakes. 

— "Ada C. Sweet. 



For Thy Good Cheer 19 



THE CHILD IN THE GARDEN. 

When to the garden of untroubled thought 

I came of late, and saw the open door, 

And wished again to enter, and explore 

The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought. 

And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, 

It seemed some purer voice must speak before 

I dared to tread the garden, loved of yore, 

That Eden list unknown, and found unsought, 

Then just within the gate I saw a child, 

A strange child, yet to my heart most dear, — 

He held his hands to me, and softly smiled 

With eyes that knew no shade of sin, or fear ; 

"Come in," he said, "and play awhile with me, 

I am the little child you used to be." 

— Henry van Dyke. 



20 For Thy Good Cheer 




Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows 
into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness 
into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will 
drop off like autumn leaves. 

— John Muir. 



For Thy Good Cheer 21 

SHASTA. 

Majestic Mount, communing with the skies, 
Yet ever mindful of the humbler earth 
Whose travail in far ages gave thee birth, 
How royal art thou in thy ministries ! 
To thee the town-tired pilgrims lift glad eyes ; 
Thou storest tribute of the icy North, 
And from thy thousand caverns pourest forth 
Refreshment o'er the land that round thee lies. 
Thou signalest the mornings, as they rise, 
Unto the waiting vales and hills below ; 
And when the day in solemn splendor dies 
Thy snows still redden with its latest glow. 
The ancient stars come forth upon their way, 
While thou hold'st watch, steadfast and calm as they. 

— Frederick L. Hosmer. 

I saw the mountain stand 
Silent, wonderful, and grand, 
Looking out across the land 
When the golden light was falling 
On distant domes and spire; 
And I heard a low voice calling, 
"Come up higher, come up higher, 
From the lowland and the mire, 
From the mist of earth desire, 
From the vain pursuit of pelf. 
From the attitude of self ; 
Come up higher, come up higher." 

—James G. Clarke. 



22 For Thy Good Cheer 

Refinement that carries us away from our fellow 
men is not God's refinement. 

— Henry Ward Beecher. 

True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It sim- 
ply consists in treating others just as you love to be 
treated yourself. — Lord Chesterfield. 

"I believe in the sacredness of the human body ; this 
transient dwelling place of a living soul, and so I deem 
it the duty of every man and woman to keep his or her 
body beautiful through right thinking and right liv- 
ing." 

In landscape the painter should give the suggestion 
of a fairer creation than we know. The details, the 
prose of nature, he should omit and give us only the 
spirit and splendor. In a portrait he must inscribe 
the character and not the features. — Emerson. 

"It is not necessary for a man to be actively bad in 
order to make a failure of life ; simple inaction will ac- 
complish it. Nature has everywhere written her pro- 
test against idleness ; everything which ceases to strug- 
gle which remains inactive rapidly deteriorates. It is 
the struggle toward an ideal, the constant effort to get 
higher and further which develops manhood and char- 
acter." 

"I would rather be able to appreciate things I can 
not have, than to have things I am not able to appre- 
ciate." 



For Thy Good Cheer 23 



"Forever the sun is pouring his gold 

On a hundred worlds that beg and borrow ; 
His warmth he squanders on summits cold, 

His wealth on the homes of want and sorrow. 
To withhold his largess of precious light 
Is to bury himself in eternal night ; 
To give 
Is to live." 



24 For Thy Good Cheer 

Under the shadow of the twilight's wing, 
I heard a voice unto the heavens sing ; 
And suddenly from Heaven's window leaned 
The Stars to know the joy of listening. 

— Frank Dempster Sherman, 

One day at a time ! That's all it can be ; 
No faster than that is the hardest fate ; 
And days have their limits, however we 
Begin them too early and stretch them too late. 
One day at a time ! It's a wholesome rhyme — 
A good one to live by ; A day at a time. 

— Helen Hunt Jackson. 

The rewards of great living are not external things, 
withheld until the crowning hour of success arrives; 
they come by the way — in the consciousness of grow- 
ing power and worth, of duties nobly met and work 
thoroughly done. Joy and peace are by the way. 

— Hamilton Wright Mdbie. 

"I have to work like a slave," said a good woman, 
weary with her worries, but the answer came from a 
more way-wise comrade: "Oh, but, my dear, you can 
work like a queen." — Frances Willard. 



For Thy Good Cheer 25 



WHERE DID IT GO? 

Where did yesterday's sunset go 
When it faded down the hills so slow — 
And the gold grew dim and the purple light 
Like an army with banners passed from sight? 

Will its flush go into the golden rod 
Its thrill to the purple aster's nod 
Its crimson fleck the maple-bough 
And the autumn-glory begin from now ? 

Deeper than flower fields sank the glow 
Of the silent pageant passing slow. 

It changed by the miracle none can see 
To the shifting lights of a symphony; 
And in resurrection of faith and hope 
And glory died on the shining slope. 

For it left its light on the hills and seas 
Where run a thousand memories. 

It flushed all night in many a dream 
It thrilled in the folding hush of prayer 
It glided into a poet's song 
It is setting still in a picture rare, 

— W. C. Gannett. 



26 



For Thy Good Cheer 



From the cradle to the grave, in his needs as in his 
pleasures, in his conceptions of the world, and of him- 
self, the man of modern times struggles through a 
maze of endless complication. Nothing is simple any 
longer; neither thought nor action: not pleasure, not 
even dying. With our own hands we have added to 
existence a train of hardships and lopped off many a 
gratification. I believe that thousands of our fellow- 
men suffering the consequences of a too artificial life, 
will be grateful if we try to give expression to their 
discontent, and to justify the regret for naturalness 
which vaguely oppresses them. 

— Charles Wagner. 



For Thy Good Cheer 27 

You and I must not complain if our plans break 
down if we have done our part. That probably means 
that the plans of One who knows more than we do 
have succeeded. — Edward Everett Hale. 

For when the heart goes before like a lamp and 
illumines the pathway, many things are made clear 
that else lie hidden in darkness. — Longfellow. 

I saw a delicate flower had grown up two feet high 
between the horses' path and the wheel-track. One 
inch more to right or left had sealed its fate, or an inch 
higher, and yet it lived to flourish as much as if it had 
a thousand acres of untrodden space around it, and 
never knew the danger it incurred. It did not borrow 
trouble, nor invite an evil fate by apprehending it. 

— Thoreau. 

The years monotonous ? The same old seasons, and 
weathers, and aspects of nature ? Never anything new 
to admire or wonder at? The monotony is in our eye- 
sight, which goes on seeing nothing but the common 
and invariable things; simply because, from long 
familiarity, these are the easy things to see. But these 
are only the frame of the picture ; the picture is never 
twice alike. — Edward Rowland Sill. 

"A good word is as soon said as an ill one." 
Our deeds still travel with us from afar, 
And what we have been makes us what we are. 

— George Eliot. 



28 For Thy Good Cheer 

A man who lives right and is right has more power 
in his silence than another has by his words. 

— Phillips Brooks. 

For to travel hopefully is a better thing than to ar- 
rive, and the true success is to labor. 

—Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Wait, and Love himself will bring 
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit 
Of Wisdom. Wait : my faith is large in Time, 
And that which shapes it to some perfect end. 

— Tennyson. 

My friends, wait God's good time till He gives you 
the signal, and dismisses you from this service; then 
dismiss yourselves to go to Him. But for the present 
restrain yourselves, inhabiting the spot which He has 
at present assigned you. — Epictetus. 

"The greatest thing," says some one, "a man can do 
for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His 
other children." I wonder how it is that we are not all 
kinder than we are. How much the world needs it! 
How easily it is done! How instantaneously it acts! 
How infallibly it is remembered! How superabun- 
dantly it pays itself back, — for there is no debtor in 
the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as 
Love. —Henry Drummond. ' 



For Thy Good Cheer 29 

— I I IIU gMaB Hii l 'l'- 1 " II I , 1 — — 1— — I— —j— I — — 

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the thing 
which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. 

— Epictetus. 

We may be sure there is deliverance from every un- 
favorable condition of our lives when we have fitted 
ourselves to accept it. — Charles B. Newcomb. 

The deeper the feeling the less demonstrative will 
be the expression of it. — Balzac. 

"The habit of helplessness begins early. It grows 
and with many men becomes fixed before the voting 
age. The first symptom is the dodging of responsibil- 
ity, the effort to unload on to somebody else." 

The Indian says that when a man kills a foe the 
strength of the slain enemy passes into the victor's 
arm. In the weird fancy lies the truth. Each defeat 
leaves us weaker for the next battle, but each conquest 
makes us stronger. Nothing makes a prison to a 
human life, but a defeated broken spirit. The bird in 
its cage that sings all the while is not a captive. God 
puts his children in no position in which He does not 
mean them to live sweetly and victoriously. So in any 
circumstances we may be "more than conquerors 
through Him that loved us." — 7. R. Miller. 



30 For Thy Good Cheer 



TRUST. 

"Searching for strawberries ready to eat; 
Finding them crimson and large and sweet ; 
What do you think I found at my feet, 
Deep in the green-hill side ? 

"Four brown sparrows, the cunning things, 
Feathered on back and breast and wings, 
Proud with the dignity plumage brings, 
Opening their four mouths wide. 

"Stooping lower to scan my prize, 
Watching the motions with curious eyes ; 
Dropping my berries in glad surprise, 
A plaintive sound I heard. 

"And looking up at the mournful call, 
I spied on a branch near the old stone-wall, 
Trembling and twittering, ready to fall, 
The poor little mother-bird. 



For Thy Good Cheer 31 



"With grief and terror her heart was wrung, 
And while to the slender bough she clung, 
She felt that the lives of her birdlings hung 
On a still more slender thread. 

" 'Ah, birdie V I said, 'if you only knew 
My heart was tender and warm and true !' 
But the thought that I loved her birdlings, too, 
Never entered her small brown head. 

"And so through this world of ours we go, 
Bearing our burdens of needless woe, 
Many a heart beating heavy and slow 
Under its load of care. 

"But O, if we only, only knew, 
That God was tender, warm and true, 
And that he loved us through and through, 
Our hearts would be lighter than air." 



32 For Thy Good Cheer 

The man who has begun to live more seriously 
within begins to live more simply without. 

— Phillips Brooks. 

It is always a mistake to plan a single detail of 
another's life; the more entirely one avoids this the 
safer is the relationship. 

— Edward Howard Griggs. 

Let us not concern ourselves about how other men 
will do their duties, but concern ourselves about how 
we shall do ours. — Lyman Abbott. 

However good you may be you have faults ; how- 
ever dull you may be you can find out what some of 
them are, and however slight they may be you had 
better make some — not too painful, but patient efforts 
to get rid of them. — Ruskin. 

Contentment comes neither by culture, nor by wish- 
ing ; it is a reconciliation with one's lot, growing out of 
an inward superiority to our surroundings. 

— /. K. McLean. 

Do we know ourselves or what good or evil circum- 
stances may bring from us? Thrice fortunate is he to 
whom circumstances are made easy, whom Fate visits 
with gentle trial, and Heaven keeps out of temptation. 

— Thackeray. 




CHARLES H. ELIOT 



^ 



N 



OBODY has any right to find life 
uninteresting or unrewarding who 
sees within the sphere of his own 
activity a wrong he can help to rem- 
edy, or within himself an evil he can 
hope to overcome. 



For Thy Good Cheer 33 



Now, therefore, see that no day passes in which you 
do not make yourself a somewhat better creature ; and 
in order to do that, find out first what you are now. Do 
not think vaguely about it; take pen and paper, and 
write down as accurate a description of yourself as 
you can, with the date to it. If you dare not do so, 
find out why you dare not. ... I do not doubt 
but that the mind is a less pleasant thing to look at 
than the face, and for that very reason it needs more 
looking at ; so always have two mirrors on your toilet- 
table, and see that with proper care you dress body and 
mind before them daily. After the dressing is once 
over for the day, think no more of it. I don't want 
you to carry about a mental pocket-comb; only to be 
smooth braided always in the morning. 

— Ruskin. 



34 For Thy Good Cheer 



FOUR-LEAF CLOVERS. 

I know a place where the sun is like gold 

And the cherry blooms burst with snow ; 

And down underneath is the loveliest nook, 

Where the four-leaved clovers grow. 

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, 

And one is for love, you know, 

And God put another one in for luck, 

If you search you will find where they grow. 

But you must have hope, and you must have faith, 

You must have love and be strong, and so 

If you work, if you wait, you will find the place, 

Where the four-leaf clovers grow. 

— Ella Higginson. 



For Thy Good Cheer 35 

I play not here marches for victors only — I play great 
marches for conquered and slain persons. 

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? 

I also say it is good to fall — battles are lost in the 
same spirit in which they are won. 

I beat triumphal drums for the dead. . . . 

Vivas to those who have failed ! 

— Walt Whitman. 

"King Hassan, well beloved, was wont to say, 
When aught went wrong, or any labor failed, 
'To-morrow, friends, will be another day V 
And in that faith he slept, and so prevailed." 

It is the test of fine character, as of fine singing, that 
the person displaying it, makes it seem, not a difficult 
thing well done, but the simplest thing in the world to 
do. — * Alice Wellington Rollins. 

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of 
knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. 
We are of the ruminating kind and it is not enough 
to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; 
unless we chew them over again they will not give us 
strength and nourishment. — Locke. 

Assuredly we spend too much labor and outlay in 
preparation for life. Instead of beginning at once to 
make ourselves happy in a moderate condition, we 
spread ourselves out wider and wider, only to make 
ourselves more and more uncomfortable. — Goethe. 



36 For Thy Good Cheer 



LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 

When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, 
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road — 
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, 
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy ; 
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 
It was a stuff to hold against the world, 
A man to match our mountains, and compel 
The stars to look our way and honor us. 

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth*, 

The tang and odor of the primal things : 

The rectitude and patience of the rocks ; 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn ; 

The courage of the bird that dares the sea ; 

The justice of the rain that loves all leaves ; 

The pity of the snow that hides all scars ; 

The loving-kindness of the wayside well ; 

The tolerance and equity of light 

That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 

As to the great oak flaring to the wind — 

To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn 

That shoulders out the sky. 



For Thy Good Cheer 37 



And so he came. 
From prairie cabin up to Capitol, 
One fair Ideal led our chieftain on. 
Forevermore he burned to do his deed 
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. 
He built the rail-pile as he built the State, 
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, 
The conscience of him testing every stroke, 
To make his deed the measure of a man. 

So came the Captain with the mighty heart ; 
And when the step of Earthquake shook the house, 
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold, 
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again 
The rafters of the Home. He held his place — 
Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. 
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
As when a kingly cedar green with boughs 
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. 

— Edwin Markham. 



38 For Thy Good Cheer 



It is the great boon of such characters as Mr. Lin- 
coln's that they re-unite what God has joined together 
and man has put asunder. In him was vindicated the 
greatness of real goodness, and the goodness of real 
greatness. — Phillips Brooks. 



For Thy Good Cheer 39 

The test of your Christian character should be that 
you are a joy-bearing agent to the world. 

— Henry Ward Beecher. 

"To widen your life without deepening it is only to 
weaken it." 

In the cultivation of soul, we are entirely our own 
master. Who is to say us nay, if we wish to grow and 
expand in tenderness, thoughtful consideration for 
others, love? — Thomas Van Ness. 

"Any one can carry his burden, however heavy, till 
nightfall. Any one can do his work, however hard, for 
one day. Any one can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, 
purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life 
ever really means/' 

Why do we so often prefer to believe in the necessity 
of suffering and weakness rather than in the possibility 
of strength and gladness? 

— Charles B. Newcomb. 



"Dis is a purty 'bligin' oP worl'," said Uncle Eben, 
"an' if you let's it git giner'ly known dat's you's look- 
ing foh trouble, its mighty li'ble to 'commodate you." 



40 For Thy Good Cheer 

I———— M— — — — — ■ —— i— — « II I II ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 

It is joy to think the best we can of human kind. 

— Wordsworth. 

He who knows only how to enjoy, and not to endure, 
is ill fitted to go down the stream of life through such a 
world as this. — Henry van Dyke. 

Would you throw away a diamond because it pricked 
you ? One good friend is not to be weighed against the 
jewels of all the earth. If there is coolness or unkind- 
ness between us, let us come face to face and have it 
out. Quick, before love grows cold ! 

— Robert Smith. 

In the long run all goodly sorrow pays ; 

There is no better thing than righteous pain ; 
The sleepless nights, the awful thorn-crowned days, 

Bring sure reward to tortured soul and brain. 
Unmeaning joys enervate in the end, 
But sorrow yields a glorious dividend, 
In the long run. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

Letting go the unworthy things that meet us, pre- 
tense, worry, self-seeking, and taking loyal hold of 
time, work, present happiness, love, let us so live as to 
be an inspiration, strength and blessing to those whose 
lives are touched by ours. 

—Anna Robertson Brown. 




HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE 



A 



MAN can never be idle with safety 
and advantage until he has been so 
trained by work that he makes his 
freedom more fruitful than his toil. 



For Thy Good Cheer 41 



"Teach your children to understand the law of at- 
traction. Let them know that if they form certain hab- 
its, and continue them until they become thoroughly 
fixed in their minds, they have through the power of 
thought become related to all people thinking and do- 
ing the things that have occupied their attention. 

"For instance, if it has been your habit to find fault 
with people, to criticise, through this habit of criticism 
all the fault-finding people of the world have become 
related to you. 

"If you are in the habit of thinking kindly and say- 
ing kind words, in a short time you will become men- 
tally related to all kindly natured people in the world, 
and you will have the force of their kind, loving 
thoughts pouring in upon you so that it will be easier 
for you to say a kind word than the reverse. 

"By indulging in healthy thoughts you attract to 
yourself everything necessary to your well being — hap- 
piness, health, strength and friends." 



42 For Thy Good Cheer 



COMPENSATION. 

The universe pays every man in his own coin ; if you 
smile, it smiles upon you in return ; if you frown, you 
will be frowned at ; if you sing, you will be invited into 
gay company ; if you think, you will be entertained by 
thinkers ; and if you love the world and earnestly seek 
for the good that is therein, you will be surrounded by 
loving friends, and nature will pour into your lap the 
treasures of the earth. Censure, criticise and hate, and 
you will be censured, criticised and hated by your fel- 
low men. Every seed brings forth after its kind. Mis- 
trust begets mistrust, jealousy begets jealousy, hatred 
begets hatred, and confidence begets confidence, kind- 
ness begets kindness, love begets love. Resist and you 
will be resisted. To meet the aggressive assault every 
entity rises up rigid and impenetrable— while yonder 
mountain of granite melts and floats away on the 
bosom of the river of love. — N. W. Zimmerman. 



For Thy Good Cheer 43 



"If we give all we have, and do all we can, and yet 
think unkindly, it profits us nothing. Our thoughts 
mould our life, because life and thought are one." 

Living will teach you how to live better than 
preacher or book. — Goethe. 

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is 
of you. — Emerson. 

"Refinement is more a spirit than an accomplishment. 
All the books of etiquette that have ever been written 
cannot make a person refined. True refinement springs 
from a gentle, unselfish heart. Without a fine spirit 
a refined life is impossible." 

Think of yourself, therefore, nobly, and you will 
live nobly. You will realize on earth that type of char- 
acter and faith which is the highest ideal of philoso- 
pher and hero and saint. — Charles W. Wendte. 

The sane, strong, brave, heroic souls of all ages were 
the men who, in the natural order of things, have lived 
above all considerations of pay or glory. They have 
served not as slaves hoping for reward, but as gods 
who would take no reward. — David Starr Jordan. 



44 For Thy Good Cheer 

To believe good of others floods the whole being with 
light. —R. E. Wilson. 

In every new department, one must in the first place 
begin again as a child ; throw a passionate interest over 
the subject; take pleasure in the shell till one has the 
happiness to arrive at the kernel. — Goethe, 

Here at the opening of the twentieth century amid 
the intensest moral questioning and spiritual hunger 
the world has ever known, there is an unbounded field 
for every well-directed effort for character upliftment. 

— Henry Wood. 

There is nothing noble in being superior to some 
other man. The true nobility is in being superior to 
your previous self. — Hindoo Sayings. 

"Take time to speak a loving word 

Where loving words are seldom heard ; 
And it will linger in the mind, 

And gather others of its kind, 
Till loving words will echo where 

Erstwhile the heart was poor and bare; 
And somewhere on thy heavenward track 

Their music will come echoing back, 
And flood thy soul with melody, 

Such is Love's immortality. " 



For Thy Good Cheer 45 



WAITING. 

Serene, I fold my hands and wait, 
Nor care for wind nor tide nor sea ; 

I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, 
For lo! my own shall come to me. 

Asleep, awake, by night or day, 
The friends I seek are seeking me ; 

No wind can drive my bark astray, 
Nor change the tide of destiny. 

What matter if I stand alone? 

I wait with joy the coming years ; 
My heart shall reap where it has sown, 

And garner up the fruit of tears. 

The waters know their own, and draw 
The brook that springs in yonder heights ; 

So flows the good with equal law 
Unto the soul of pure delights. 

The stars come nightly to the sky, 

The tidal wave unto the sea; 
Nor time nor space, nor deep nor high, 

Can keep my own away from me. 

— John Burroughs. 



46 For Thy Good Cheer 



What men usually say of misfortunes, that they 
never come alone, may with equal truth be said of 
good fortune ; nay, of the circumstances which gather 
round us in a harmonious way, whether it arise from 
a kind of fatality or that man has the power of attract- 
ing to himself things that are mutually related. 

— Goethe. 



For Thy Good Cheer 47 

Do you think that because you have tried once and 
failed you cannot succeed. There is no condition that 
you cannot overcome. — Margaret Stowe. 

To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is 
not what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes 
the soul strong and fit for a noble career. 

— E. P. Tenney. 

Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, 

Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her. 

Swift willed is thrice willed ; late means never more; 

Impatient is her foot, nor turns again. 

— James Russell Lowell. 

I do not know of any way so sure of making others 
happy as of being so one's self. 

— Sir Arthur Helps. 

A man cannot speak but he judges himself. Every 
opinion reacts on him who uttered it. You cannot do 
wrong without suffering wrong. — Emerson. 

Religion is the life of hope. It is the spirit in man 
which leads him to say, I believe there is something 
better for the world than the world has yet come to, 
I believe there is something better for me than I 
have yet come to. It is the spirit which says, I am 
discontented with all that I have accomplished yet, 
and all that I am as yet, but because I am discontent, 
I will press on to something higher and better. 

— Lyman Abbott. 



48 For Thy Good Cheer 



GOODBY. 

Bid me goodby ! No sweeter salutation 

Can friendship claim, 
Nor yet can any language, any nation, 

A sweeter frame. 

It is not final ; it forebodes no sorrow 

As some declare 
Who, born to fretting, are so prone to borrow 

To-morrow's share. 

"Goodby" is but a prayer, a benediction 

From lips sincere, 
And breathed by thine it brings a sweet conviction 

That God will hear. 

"Goodby !" Yes, "God be with you !" prayer and bless* 
ing 

In simplest phrase, 
Alike our need and his dear care confessing 

In all our ways. 

However rare or frequent be our meeting, 

However nigh 
The last long parting or the endless greeting, 

Bid me goodby! 

— Harriet McEwen Kimball. 




VICTOR HUGO 



T 



HE beautiful is as useful as the use 
fill. 



4 8 



For Thy Good Cheer 49 

"The vision of God that a working soul gets, in the 
presence of right living, and of honest effort is the one 
great revelation of time." 

He who has conferred a kindness should be silent, 
he who has received one should speak of it. 

— Seneca. 

That which we are, we shall teach, not voluntarily, 
but involuntarily. Thoughts come into our minds by 
avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go 
out of our minds through avenues which we never 
voluntarily opened. — Emerson. 

"The working world understands that the only man 
who really knows things is the man who can do 
things." 

Certainly, in our little sphere, it is not the most active 
people to whom we owe the most. . . . It is the 
lives like the stars, which simply pour down on us the 
calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to 
which we look, and out of which we gather the deep- 
est calm and courage. — Phillips Brooks. 

The world only needs that we learn the laws of the 
universe and co-operate with God, and the health and 
joy and power that come with health may be ours. 

— Minot J. Savage. 



50 For Thy Good Cheer 



"I thank God for his night. 

'The stars are shining down upon the silent moun- 
tains and upon the whispering sea. The pulse of hu- 
manity is beating slowly and restfully. I, too, am a 
part of the All, God's All, and trust myself to the In- 
finite Care." 



For Thy Good Cheer 51 



NIGHT. 

Mysterious Night! when our first parents knew 

Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, 

Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, — 

This glorious canopy of light and blue? 

Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 

Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came, 

And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 

Who could hope through such darkness lay concealed 

Within thy beams, O sun ! or who could find, 

Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, 

That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ! 

Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? 

If light can thus deceive wherefore not life? 

— Blanco White. 



52 For Thy Good Cheer 



THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY'S BEGINNING. 

"I thank God for sunshine and bird-song, for the 
sweet morning light upon the hill-tops, and the tender 
eyes of my loved ones. The great world is awake and 
a-throb with life. I, too, am awake and life is pulsing 
through my veins. I have a part in the great world, in 
its work, its joy and its sorrow. To-day I can be a 
little center from which shall radiate peace, kindliness 
and good-will. I thank God for opportunity. A beau- 
tiful golden sunbeam has entered through my cham- 
ber window, and awakened me to the gladness and 
beauty of the morning. May my spirit be wakened 
and kindled by the Divine Spirit, so that all this day 
it may warm and gladden the hearts it touches." 



For Thy Good Cheer 53 

Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron 
string. — Emerson. 

Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry 
meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to 
that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter 
abundant. — Washington Irving. 

When you are asked where and how is your little 
achievement going into God's plan, point to your Mas- 
ter, who keeps the plans, and then go on doing your 
little service as faithfully as if the whole temple were 
yours to build. — Phillips Brooks. 

"Some men who marry and settle down would have 
done the world more good had they remained single 
and settled up." 

They that can walk at will 

Where the works of the Lord are revealed, 
Little guess what joy can be got 

From a cowslip out of the field; 
Flowers to these "spirits in prison" 

Are all they can know of the spring, 
They freshen and sweeten the wards, 

Like the waft of an angel's wing. 

■—Tennyson. In the Children's Hospital 



54 F° r Thy Good Cheer 



The only safety in our American life lies in spurn- 
ing the accidental distinctions which sunder one man 
from another, and in paying homage to each man only 
because of what he essentially is; in stripping off the 
husks of occupation, of position, of accident, until the 
soul stands forth revealed, and we know the man only 
because of his worth as a man. 

— Theodore Roosevelt. 



For Thy Good Cheer 55 

Hats off! 

Along the street there comes 

A blare of bugles, ruffle of drums, 

A flash of color beneath the sky ; 

Hats off! 

The flag is passing by! 

Blue and crimson and white it shines 

Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines. 

Hats off! 

The colors before us fly; 

But more than the flag is passing by. 

Sea fights and land fights, grim and great, 
Fought to make and to save the state; 
Weary marches and sinking ships; 
Cheers of victory on dying lips ; 

Days of plenty and days of peace ; 
March of a strong land's swift increase; 
Equal justice, right, and law; 
Stately honor and reverend awe. 

Sign of a nation great and strong 
To ward her people from foreign wrong; 
Pride and glory and honor, all 
Live in the colors, to stand or fall. 

Hats off! 

Along the street there comes 

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums ; 

And loyal hearts are beating high ; 

Hats off! 

The flag is passing by ! — H. H. Bennett, 



56 For Thy Good Cheer 



"Believe in yourself, believe in humanity, believe in 
the success of your undertakings. Fear nothing and 
no one. Love your work. Work, hope, trust. Keep 
in touch with to-day. Teach yourself to be practical 
and up-to-date and sensible. You cannot fail. 



For Thy Good Cheer 57 



"LABORARE EST ORARE." 

"Labor is worship!" the robin is singing; 
"Labor is worship !" the wild bee is ringing. 
Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing 

Speaks to thy soul from out nature's great heart. 
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower; 
From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower ; 
From the small insect, the rich coral bower ; 

Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part. 

Labor is life! Tis the still water faileth; 

Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth; 

Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ; 

Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
Labor is glory ! — the flying cloud lightens ; 
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens; 

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune. 

Labor is health ! Lo ! the husbandman reaping, 
How through his veins goes the life current leaping! 
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping, 

True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides. 
Work — for some good, be it ever so slowly ; 
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly ; 
Labor ! — All labor is noble and holy ; 

Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God. 

— Frances S. Osgood. 



58 For Thy Good Cheer 

No one is really miserable who has not tried to 
cheapen life. — David Starr Jordan, 

In spite of the stare of the wise and the world's de- 
rision, 
Dare follow the star-blazed road, dare follow the vision. 

— Edward Markham. 

You must do the duty next your hand, that is cer- 
tain ; but of ten duties next your hand you are to choose 
that which you do most happily, which suits you best, 
or for which God fitted you. 

— Edward Everett Hale. 

"The world is looking for the man who can do some- 
thing, not for the man who can 'explain' why he didn't 
do it." 

The moment you find yourself in an absolutely hope- 
less and despairing state of mind regarding your work 
— take a vacation. If only for a day — still take it. 
Let your brain rest by giving it new thoughts. You 
will return to work like one reborn. 

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

It is true there is much to be done, and perhaps you 
are weak-handed ; but stick to it steadily, and you will 
see great effects, for "constant dropping wears away 
stones ; and by diligence and patience the mouse ate in 
two the cable ; and little strokes fell great oaks." 

— Benjamin Franklin. 



For Thy Good Cheer 59 



The truth-seeker is the only God-seeker. 

— Minot J. Savage. 

Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation^ are 
the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the dron- 
ing world, chained to appearances, will not allow the 
realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to 
say in proverbs without contradiction. And this law 
of laws, which the pulpit, the senate and the college 
deny, is hourly preached in all markets and workshops 
by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and 
as omnipresent as that of birds and flies. 

— Emerson. 

One need not journey far to discover the ravages 
made in modern society by the spirit of worldliness ; 
and if we have so little foundation, so little equilibrium, 
calm, good sense and initiative, one of the chief rea- 
sons lies in the undermining of the home life. The 
masses have timed their pace by that of people of 
fashion. They, too, have become worldly. They have 
broken with simplicity. We must learn again to live 
the home life, to value our domestic traditions. 

— Charles Wagner. 



6o For Thy Good Cheer 



TWENTY-ONE. 

My darling One-and-Twenty boy, 
Rise to your strong young feet, 

And look up in the April blue 
And feel that life is sweet. 

The man who cowers in the shade 

And watches for the cloud 
Will watch and shiver every hour 

Until his back be bowed. 

Ought there to be a sermon preached 

When one is twenty-one? 
Mine is so short 'tis finished 

As soon as 'tis begun. 

Be happy, One-and-Twenty boy! 

To be just as you should 
Be happy, happy, happy, 

And 'tis like you'll find you're good. 

Here's a motto, One-and-Twenty boy, 

Engrave it 'neath your crest ; 
"The wisest man's the happiest one, 

The happiest one's the best." 

— Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett 



For Thy Good Cheer 61 

Guard well thy words — 
How else can thou be master of thyself? 
Keep watch upon thyself 

And govern well thy lips as doors unto a treasure- 
house, 
That nothing may be stolen from thee unawares 
By sudden moods. — Mabel Percy Haskell. 

Just take hold of the first thing that comes in your 
way. If the Lord's got anything bigger to give you, 
He will see to it. — A. D. T. Whitney. 

And as the path of duty is made plain, 
May grace be given that I may walk therein, 
Not like the hireling for his selfish gain, 
With backward glances and reluctant tread, 
But cheerful in the light around me thrown, 
Walking as one to pleasant service led ; 
Doing God's will as if it were my own, 
Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone ! 

—Whittier. 
"A little thing, a sunny smile, 
A loving word at morn. 
And all day long the day shone bright, 
The cares of life were made more light, 
And sweetest hopes were born." 

No man can instruct others in anything; we can, 
however, awaken thought and arouse impulses. And 
this is all there is of teaching — to supply an atmosphere 
in which thought can germinate and grow. 

— Elbert Hubbard. 



62 For Thy Good Cheer 



The virtues of forbearance and self-control are still 
in a very rudimentary state, and of mutual helpfulness 
there is far too little among men. — John Fiske. 

Study the past to see how the present has grown out 
of it. Study the present to learn its tendencies, to 
learn where to cast your vote. Then formulate your 
ideal and hold fast to it till it does its work. Life 
thus becomes a definite science. 

— Horatio W. Dresser. 

Pleasure and simplicity are two old acquaintances. 
Entertain simply, meet your friends simply. If you 
come from work well done, are as amiable and genuine 
as possible toward your companions and speak no evil 
of the absent, your success is assured. 

— Charles Wagner. 

If you meet with ingratitude, trickery or disappoint- 
ment be assured you are not sending out the right 
mental stuff; the fault lies somewhere in yourself. 
Believe in yourself, believe in others. Keep hopeful 
and sympathetic. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



For Thy Good Cheer 63 



O Holy Father, inspire our hearts now by thy spirit, 
to think and feel the things that we do most truly be- 
lieve; and give depth and power to the stream of ex- 
perience, that wisdom and goodness and truth and 
moral beauty, may be a kind of common sense to our 
hearts, to our minds, and our souls. 

Let thy teaching be adapted to our weakness, to our 
ignorance, and to our want. Be gentle with us in 
our impatience, in our short-sightedness, and teach us 
how little we know, and yet kindle in our hearts an 
inextinguishable hope, a divine trust, a mighty con- 
quest of faith. Amen. — Horatio Stebbins. 



64 For Thy Good Cheer 



A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot ! 
Rose plot 

Fringed pool, 
Ferned grot, — 

The veriest school 

Of peace ; and yet the fool 
Contends that God is not. 

Not God ! in Gardens ! when the eve is cool ? 
Nay, but I have a sign ; 
'Tis very sure God walks in mine. 

— Thomas Edward Brown. 




EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS 



T 



O look ever toward the noblest ideal 
for oneself, yet to forgive the failure 
to live up to it in every other — this is 
indispensible to right living. 



For Thy Good Cheer 65 



IF I COULD LISTEN CLOSE ENOUGH. 

Sometimes in summer afternoons 

An undertone will fall, 
As if a hundred tongues must speak, — 

Must speak, and tell me all. 

O nature, dear interpreter, 

Would'st thou my sorrow heal? 

If I could listen close enough, 
What then, would'st thou reveal ? 

When fledgling stir within the nest 
As morn comes o'er the hill, 

Down deep among the water cress 
What says the lisping rill ? 

As freshening winds invade the wood, 

And all the trees rejoice; 
How easy then to half expect 

The fir to find a voice. 

The lark pours out so glad a note, 

To joy my heart is stirred ; 
If I could listen close enough, 

Perhaps he brings me word. 

— Elizabeth Ballard-Thompson. 



66 For Thy Good Cheer 






Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, 
thicker than gnats at sun down. We walk through a 
cloud of them. —Henry van Dyke. 

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business 
is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many 
other things. And it is not by any means certain that 
a man's business is the most important thing he has 
to do. — Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Language can never explain to any one who does not 
already know, and since words are never a vindication, 
silence, when ballasted by soul, is effective beyond 
speech. — Elbert Hubbard. 

Time is infinitely long, and each day is a vessel into 
which a great deal may be poured, if one will actually 
fill it up. — Goethe. 

If I do not keep step with my companions it is be- 
cause I hear a different drummer. Let a man step to 
the music he hears, however measured, or however far 
away. — Thoreau. 

If you are tempted to be angry, pause a moment and 
still the rising activities. Deal in the same way with 
the tendency to be annoyed, resentful or depressed. 
Remember that if you spare yourself these useless ex- 
penditures of force, you husband and increase your 
energy. — Horatio W. Dresser. 



For Thy Good Cheer 67 



The source of nearly all the evil and unhappiness of 
this world is selfishness. We know it; but we still 
keep on being selfish. We see that the world might be 
made ideally beautiful if only all people would live 
unselfish lives ; and yet we keep on being selfish. We 
strive after the things that will minister to our im- 
mediate satisfaction, and hate people who get in our 
way and hinder the attainment of these things. And 
so we keep on, and the world jars and is unharmonious 
and is darkened and is miserable ; and we wonder why 
God has not made things more fair, when it is we 
ourselves who are marring the purpose of God, which 
we can plainly see. — Minot J. Savage. 



68 For Thy Good Cheer 

Happiness comes from striving, doing, loving, 
achieving, conquering, always something positive and 
forceful. — David Starr Jordan. 

For my own part, I believe in the immortality of the 
soul, not in the sense in which I accept the demonstrable 
truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith in the 
reasonableness of God's work. — John Fiske. 

One of the most vicious phases of conduct is to be 
generous at the expense of truth, that is, to pretend to 
kindly feelings, which are quite undeserved by the 
recipient and equally unfelt by the giver. To make 
everything smooth and pleasant for those who merit a 
firm rebuke is conduct which may call itself virtue, but 
is often the result of moral laziness, some tempera- 
ments choosing it as the most comfortable course. 

— Edward Howard Griggs. 

Live not without a friend : The Alpine rock must own 
Its mossy grace or else be nothing but a stone. 

— W. W. Story. 

Men degenerate without a strong grasp on morality, 
but they grow deformed and unhappy without art, for 
art is as truly the final expression of perfect character 
as of perfect thought, and beauty is as much a quality 
of divinity as righteousness. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 



For Thy Good Cheer 69 



Sail forth ; steer for the deep waters only — 
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with 

me; 
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to 

go, 
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. 
O my brave soul ! 
O farther, farther sail ! 
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of 

God? 
O farther, farther, farther sail! 

— W alt Whitman. 



7o For Thy Good Cheer 

Do not look forward to what might happen to-mor- 
row; the same everlasting Father who cares for you 
to-day will take care of you to-morrow, and every day. 
Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will 
give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace 
then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imagina- 
tions. — St. Francis de Sales. 

One adequate support for the calamities of mortal 
life exists — one only! an assured belief that the pro- 
cession of our fate, howe'er sad, or disturbed, is or- 
dered by a Being of infinite benevolence and power, 
whose everlasting purposes embrace all accidents, con- 
verting them to good. — William Wordsworth. 

The dawn is not distant, 
Nor is the night starless; 
Love is eternal ! 
God is still God, and 
His faith shall not fail us ; 
Christ is eternal ! — Longfellow. 

What God is doing in this world is making men and 
women, and when He puts a child in the cradle, He 
says, You may help me. — Lyman Abbott, 

There is strength, repose of mind and inspiration in 
fresh apparel. God gives nature new garments every 
season. You are a part of Nature. The tree trusts, 
and grows, and takes storm and sun as divinely sent, 
and believes in its right to new apparel, and it comes. 
It will come to you if you do the same. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



For Thy Good Cheer 71 



The size of this world is the size which each person 
by his thought makes it. In a book published about a 
year ago of a course of lectures given at the Lowell 
Institute, the writer says that "the size of the universe 
depends upon the range of human interests. The with- 
drawal of interest from any phase of reality means 
practically the extinction of that phase for that person. 
Dead interests mean a dead universe." What an ap- 
palling thought is this ! If we withdraw our interest 
from all phases we have no world at all ! And yet it 
is an inspiration ; for if the statement is true, then it is 
a fact that we each live in a world of our own selection, 
our own choice. Of course, many a person is tied 
down by inevitable, or what seem to be inevitable, cir- 
cumstances, contrary to the nature of that person. But, 
after all, those environments do not determine the size 
of his world. His attitude toward those surroundings 
is the measuring-scale. — E. J. Daniels. 



72 For Thy Good Cheer 



The birth of a little child reveals God ; the helpless- 
ness of a little child proves providence ; the innocence 
of a little child illustrates heaven ; the death of a little 
child implies immortality. Surely no little one sent 
into an earthly home, even but for a day, and bequeath- 
ing these beautiful and sublime lessons can be thought 
to have come and gone in vain. 

— William R. Alger. 



For Thy Good Cheer 73 



MOTHER AND CHILD. 

My child is lying on my knees 
The signs of Heaven she reads. 

My face is all the Heaven she sees, 
Is all the heaven she needs. 

I also am a child and I 

Am ignorant and weak 
I gaze upon the starry sky 

And then I must not speak. 

For all behind the starry sky 

Behind the world so broad 
Behind men's hearts and souls, doth lie 

The Infinite of God. 

Lo, Lord, I sit in the wide space 

My child upon my knee, 
She looketh up into my face 

And I look up to thee. 

— George MacDonald. 



74 For Thy Good Cheer 



The dispute about religion and the practice of it sel- 
dom go together. — Young. 

"The unhappy are always wrong : wrong in being so, 
wrong in saying so, wrong in needing help of others." 

You will succeed best when you put the restless, 
anxious side of affairs out of mind, and allow the rest- 
ful side to live in your thoughts. 

— Margaret Stone. 

Be not anxious about to-morrow. Do to-day's duty, 
fight to-day's temptation, and do not weaken and dis- 
tract yourself by looking forward to things which you 
cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them. 

— Charles Kingsley. 

The first duty for a man is still that of subduing 
Fear. A man's acts are slavish, not true, but spacious ; 
his very thoughts are false, — till he have got Fear 
under his feet. — Carlyle. 

"Much of our dissension is due to misunderstanding, 
which could be put right by a few honest words and a 
little open dealing." 



For Thy Good Cheer 75 



A SHRINE. 

She sits and sews in the window there, 

The sunshine round her lingers, 
Just touching her braids of bright brown hair 

And slender busy fingers. 
And she fashions garments fair and fine 
For the dear little Baby — hers and mine. 
Her swift, white fingers can scarce keep pace 

As down the years she glances, 
And sews into folds of mull and lace 

Her own sweet thoughts and fancies. 
And her eyes are bright with light divine 
As she croons to the baby — hers and mine. 
She drops her work when the daylight dies — 

I see them rocking, rocking — 
There are dimpled arms, two dear, dark eyes, 

A wee blue shoe and stocking ; 
And my heart bends low before the shrine 
Of my wife and the Baby — hers and mine. 

— Alice E. Allen. 



76 For Thy Good Cheer 

If you would be loved as a companion, avoid un- 
necessary criticism upon those with whom you live. 

— Sir "Arthur Helps. 

If you are worth your salt — though you have leisure 
and are relieved of earning your bread — unless you 
work in some non-remunerative capacity, and put some- 
thing into the common stock of society in return for 
what you take out, you are as really parasites as tramps 
or paupers. — Theodore Roosevelt. 

Life is large. We cannot possibly grasp the whole 
of it. What may we profitably let go? We may let 
go all things which we cannot carry into the eternal. 
Pretense, eternity is not good for shams, nor for worry ; 
nor for self-seeking. But let us take loyal hold of time, 
work, present happiness, love, friendship and duty. 

— Anna Robertson Brown. 

May I reach 

That purest heaven, be to other souls 

The cup of strength in some great agony, 

Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, 

Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, 

Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, 

And in diffusion even more intense, 

So shall I join the choir invisible, 

Whose music is the gladness of the world. 

— George Eliot. 



For Thy Good Cheer 77 



COURAGE. 

Be not discouraged with thy doubt, O soul : 
Perchance the hand of God it is that leads 
Thy faith to nobler creeds and broader trust. 
Part of thy manhood is to doubt and solve 
And rise to higher things. For cobwebs hang 
About the intellect as in a court 
But little used, and we must let the sun 
Pour in, and conquer mirk and mist and night. 
The creed thy father built, wherein his soul 
Did live and move and find its vital joy, 
May be but small to thee ; then, without fear, 
Build o'er again the atrium of the soul 
So broad that all mankind may feast with thee. 
— William Ordway Partridge, 






78 For Thy Good Cheer 



The day is coming when no one will be called a 
Christian unless he lives for humanity as Jesus lived. 
A new life is stirring in the hearts and minds of men 
and women to-day. It is a new vision of the Christ. 

— Horatio W. Dresser. 



For Thy Good Cheer 79 



THE ARTISAN. 

O God, my master God, look down and see 
If I am making what Thou wouldst of me. 
Fain might I lift my hands up in the air 
From the defiant passion of my prayer ; 
Yet here they grope on this cold altar stone, 
Graving the words I think I should make known. 
Mine eyes are Thine. Yea, let me not forget, 
Lest with unstaunched tears I leave them wet, 
Dimming their faithful power, till they can not see 
Some small, plain task that can be done for Thee. 
My feet, that ache for paths of flowery bloom, 
Halt steadfast in the straitness of this room. 
Though they may never be on errands sent, 
Here shall they stay, and wait Thy full content. 
And my poor heart, that doth so crave for peace, 
Shall beat until Thou bid its beating cease, 
So thou, dear master God, look down and see 
Whether I do Thy bidding needfully. 

— Alice Brown. 



8o For Thy Good Cheer 



THE JOY OF THE HILLS. 

I ride on the mountain tops, I ride; 
I have found my life and am satisfied. 
Onward I ride in the blowing oats, 
Checking the field lark's rippling notes — 

Lightly I sweep 

From steep to steep. 

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget 
Life's hoard of regret — 

All the terror and pain 

Of the chafing chain. 
Grind on, O cities, grind; 
I leave you a blur behind. 
I am lifted elate, the skies expand ; 
Here, the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand ; 
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls ; 
I ride with the voices of waterfalls. 

I swing as one in a dream — I swing 

Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing; 

The world is gone like an empty word; 

My body's a bough in the wind, 

My heart, a bird ! — Edwin Markham. 




THOMAS STARR KING 



B 



E sure of the foundation of your life, 
knoio why you live as you do. Be 
ready to give a reason for it. Do 
not, in such a matter as life, build on 
opinion or custom, or what you guess 
is true. Make it a matter of cer- 
tainty and science. 
80 



For Thy Good Cheer 81 



I ceased to think, to feel ; I had often lain thus under 
other trees, but never in such a mood as this. I was 
akin with the vast and silent movement of things 
which encompassed me. I cannot translate into words 
the mystery and the thrill of that hour, when for the 
first time I gave myself wholly into the keeping of 
Nature, and she received me as her child. Unbroken 
repose, unlimited growth, inexhaustible life, measure- 
less force, unsearchable beauty — who shall feel these 
things and know that there are no words for them ? 
— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 



For Thy Good Cheer 



Days change so many things — yes, hours — 
We see so differently in suns and showers. 

— George Klingle. 

While we sit brooding over our troubles and the 
hardships of our lot, the great world goes tranquilly 
on, the infinite sky hangs over us, the everlasting order 
abides, and "God is where he was." Can we not for- 
get or endure our pestering "insect miseries" for a 
little while in the presence of the eternal laws and 
eternal powers? — Charles G. Ames. 

"A man owes his first duty to himself, and that duty 
is to be gentle in his acts, and moderate in his judg- 
ments. Thus does he conserve his strength over 
against the time when it is most needed, stands ready 
to seize opportunity when it comes his way." 

It is only when people begin to care for each other 
that the fineness of human nature is seen. As long as 
you don't love anybody much, your character is like a 
garden in winter, one virtue is under a glass shade, and 
another is covered over with straw, and all of them 
are pinched and sickly. Then love comes by, and it is 
summer; and your garden rejoices and blossoms like a 
rose, without your bothering about it. 

— Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 



For Thy Good Cheer 83 



OLD AND NEW FRIENDS. 

'Make new friends, but keep the old ; 
Those who are silver, these are gold. 
New made friends, like new made wine, 
Age will mellow and refine. 
Friendships that have stood the test, 
Time and change, are surely best. 
Brow may wrinkle, hair turn gray, 
Friendship never owns decay; 
For 'mid old friends kind and true 
We once more our youth renew. 
But, alas, old friends must die; 
New friends must their place supply. 
Then cherish friendship in your breast; 
New is good, but old is best. 
Make new friends, but keep the old ; 
Those are silver, these are gold." 



For Thy Good Cheer 



Let the world have peace for five hundred years, the 
aristocracy of blood will have gone, the aristocracy of 
gold will have come and gone, that of talent will also 
have come and gone, and the aristocracy of goodness, 
which is the democracy of man, the government of all 
for all, by all, will be the power that is. 

— Theodore Parker, in 1846. 

Let every pulpit which is occupied by an ambassador 
of the Prince of Peace proclaim anew the very founda- 
tion principle of Christianity. Let teachers, who are 
shaping and guiding plastic minds, show the beauty of 
peace ; let them teach the power of higher ideals, and 
how to win real victories ; let them exhibit moral hero- 
ism as manly and honorable when compared with brute 
force; let them remind their pupils that He that 
ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a 
city. — Henry Wood. 



For Thy Good Cheer 85 



If simplicity of heart is an essential condition of re- 
spect, simplicity of life is its best school. Whatever 
may be the state of your fortune, avoid anything which 
could make your children think themselves more or 
better than others. — Charles Wagner. 

It is easy to sit outside and say how the man inside 
should run the machine, but it is not so easy to go in- 
side and run the machine yourself. 

— Theodore Roosevelt. 

Whoever may 

Discern true ends, shall grow pure enough 
To love them, brave enough to strive for them, 
And strong enough to reach them. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. 
Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-mor- 
row speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, 
though it contradict everything you said to-day. 

— Emerson. 



86 For Thy Good Cheer 

I III I ■■ lliMi M ill l iinrim i i m i MKlmrmmr^ 

When our world learns this lesson — when every child 
is reverenced as a royal heir of heaven because it is a 
brother of the Christ Child, then a great light will 
lighten the nations. — Henry van Dyke. 

"A wise old German said : 'I likes to give villingly ; 
ven I gives villingly, it enjoys me so much, I gives it 
again/ " 

We are encompassed about by the forces that make 
for righteousness. All power we possess, or seem to 
possess comes from our accord with these forces. 
There is no lasting force except the power of God. 

— David Stair Jordan. 

The effective appeal to-day is not addressed to the 
selfish desire for personal advantage as a result of re- 
ligious effort, but to the sure prospect that a man of 
God can serve his day and generation more widely, 
deeply and permanently than a godless man. 

— Charles R. Brown. 

"There are some people who turn gray, but who do 
not grow hoary, whose faces are furrowed, but not 
wrinkled, whose hearts are sore wounded in many 
places, but are not dead. There is a youth that bids 
defiance to age and there is a kindness which laughs at 
the world's rough usage. These are they who have 
returned good for evil, not having learned it as a les- 
son of righteousness, but because they have no evil in 
them to return upon others." 



For Thy Good Cheer 87 

It is ours to make the unknown future brighter 
Than the fairest dreams of all the dreamers ; 
Ours to see the vision and fulfill it. 
Fairer than we dream of, fairer even 
Than the shining eyes of hope can see it. 

— Rhoda Tucker Frick. 

'Now is the time ! Ah, friend, no longer wait 
To scatter loving smiles and words of cheer 
To those around whose lives may be so drear, 
They may not need you in the coming year. 
Now is the time!" 

''Whatever the weather may be," says he, 
"Whatever the weather may be, 
It's the songs ye sing, an' the smiles ye wear, 
That's a-makin' the sun shine everywhere." 

— James Whitcomb Riley. 

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach, 
When the moon is new and thin, 
Into our hearts high yearnings 
Come welling and surging in; 
Come from the mystic ocean, 
Whose rim no foot has trod — 
Some of us call it longing, 
And others call it God. 

— William Herbert Carruth. 



88 For Thy Good Cheer 



THE SOUL OF LIFE. 

To live for common ends is to be common. 

The highest faith makes still the highest man ; 

For we grow like the things cur souls believe. 

And rise or sink as we aim high or low. 

No mirror shows such likeness of the face 

As faith we live by of the heart and mind. 

We are in very truth that which we love ; 

And love, like noblest deeds, is born of faith. 

The lover and the hero reason not, 

But they believe in what they love and do. 

All else is accident, — this is the soul 

Of life, and lifts the whole man to itself, 

Like a keynote, which, running through all sounds, 

Upbears them all in perfect harmony. 

— Bishop Spaulding. 




BENJ. IDE WHEELER 



/ 



T is character that counts in nations 
as in individuals. Only in loyalty to 
the old can we serve the new; only in 
understanding of the past can we in- 
terpret and use the present; for his- 
tory is not made out unfolded, and 
the old world entire is ever present 
in the new. 



For Thy Good Cheer 89 

"That which is good to be done, cannot be done too 
soon; and if it is neglected to be done early, it will fre- 
quently happen that it will not be done at all." 

I have never known a case of undiscovered merit, and 
I have never known a case where merit failed to 
achieve success. I have known many men gifted with 
great ability who failed miserably in life, but in every 
instance the failure arose from neglect to develop nat- 
ural talent into trained capacity. — Bourke Cockran. 

Are you in earnest ? Seize this very minute ; 
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it ; 
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated, 
Begin, and then the work will be completed. 

— Goethe. 

We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if 
we waited for some better sympathy and intimacy to 
come. But whence and where? To-morrow will be 
like to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing 
to live. — Emerson. 

There are few things which bless and soothe the life 
of others more, or do them more good, than the giving 
of thanks. It makes men feel that they are some use 
in the world, and that is one of the finest impulses to a 
better life. It cheers many a wearied heart with pleas- 
ant hope and bids many a man who is sad in mood 
take courage. — Stopford A. Brooke. 



90 For Thy Good Cheer 

"Don't tell me you are too old. 
Age is all imagination. Ignore years and they will 
ignore you." 

At sixty-two life has begun; 
At seventy-three begin once more; 
Fly swifter as thou nearest the sun, 
And brighter shine at eighty- four. 

At ninety-five 

Shouldst thou arrive, 
Still wait on God and work and thrive. 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Every success in life comes from sympathy and co- 
operation and love. — Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 

Let us devote ourselves anew to the service of good 
will. Let us resolve for the time to come to be con- 
siderate of all, the present and the absent; to be just to 
all ; to be kindly affectionate to all. 

— N. L. Frothingham. 

Let fathers seek to guide that youthful exuberance in 
their sons, which finds expression in militarism, into 
higher channels and toward more worthy ideals. 

Let the sovereign people, in the election of members 
of Congress and Senators choose such men as will 
not misrepresent them, and longer sustain the reign 
of brute force in the world in the place of law, reason 
and right. — Henry Wood. 



For Thy Good Cheer 91 



OPPORTUNITIES. 

Have we all learned the lesson of grasping opportu- 
nities the moment they appear? A lady was seated 
under a large tree reading a very interesting book. 
Suddenly the wind brought a beautiful many tinted 
autumn leaf and laid it by her side. She noticed it and 
said to herself, "What a lovely leaf! I must not for- 
get to pick it up after I finish this chapter." But when 
she finished that chapter and looked for the leaf — it 
was gone. If the wind could have spoken I fancy it 
would have said, "Madam, I brought the leaf and 
placed it where you could secure it by merely reaching 
out your hand. But you chose to leave it until a more 
convenient time; therefore I have sent it away, where 
though you search forever, you will never find it again ; 
and even if, after many days' searching you could find 
it, it would not be the same, for the beautiful tints 
would be gone." 

Compare the story of the leaf with our opportunities. 

— Flora G. Everest. 



92 For Thy Good Cheer 



God is not dumb, that he should speak no more ; 
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor ; 
There towers the mountain of the Voice no less, 
Which who so seeks shall find ; but he who bends 
Intent on manna still, and mortal ends, 
Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore. 

— James Russell Lowell. 



For Thy Good Cheer 93 

How poor are they that have not patience! 
What wound did ever heal but by degrees? 

— Shakespeare. 

Do not spill thy soul, in running hither and yon, 
grieving over the misfortunes, the mistakes and the 
vices of others. The one person whom it is most neces- 
sary to reform is yourself. — Dorothy Quigley. 

"He who goes down into the battle of life giving a 
smile for every frown, a cheery word for every cross 
one, and lending a helping hand to the unfortunate, is, 
after all, the best of missionaries. ,, 

Every expansion of civilization makes for peace. In 
other words, every expansion of a great civilized power 
makes for law, order and righteousness. 

— Theodore Roosevelt. 

I am sure it is a great mistake always to know 
enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug 
and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of 
loveliness. — Adeline Knapp. 

There is no spectacle so depressing as the ruins of a 
house that has never been finished. The ruins of 
houses that have had their day and been lived in are 
often restful, and beautiful, and picturesque; but the 
decay of a building that has been begun and not com- 
pleted, is one of the most ghastly and hideous objects 
on the face of the earth. So many lives seem to me 
like that. — Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 



94 For Thy Good Cheer 



Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing com- 
bination of tender curves and spheric softness that ever 
stood for woman ; yet if the lip have the least fulness 
that hints of the flesh, if the brow be insincere, if in 
the minutest particular the physical beauty suggests a 
moral ugliness, that sculptor — unless he be portraying 
a moral ugliness for a moral purpose — may as well give 
over his marble for paving stones. Time, whose judg- 
ments are inexorably moral, will not accept his work. 
For, indeed, we may say that he who has not yet per- 
ceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are con- 
vergent lines which run back into a common ideal 
origin, and who therefore is not afire with moral beauty 
just as with artistic beauty — that he in short, who has 
not come to that stage of quiet and eternal frenzy in 
which the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty 
mean one thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light 
within him ; he is not yet the great artist. 

— Sidney Lanier. 



For Thy Good Cheer 95 

'■■■'■■ 111 ii—g— 1— mm ■ n a n ■! iimii— g— tm m —aa — ■ ■ n 

One doth not know 
How much an ill word may empoison liking. 

— Shakespeare. 

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the 
pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the 
pathway of the strong. — Carlyle. 

I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy 
berth. To this I replied: "You cannot be an editor, 
do not try the law; do not think of the ministry, let 
alone all ships and merchandise; abhor politics; don't 
practice medicine; be not a farmer or a soldier or a 
sailor; don't study, don't think. None of these are 
easy. O, my son, you have come into a hard world. I 
know of only one easy place in it, and that is the 
grave!" — Henry Ward Beecher. 

It is just as easy to form a good habit as it is a bad 
one. And it is just as hard to break a good habit as a 
bad one. So get the good ones and keep them. 

— William McKinley. 

The strength of your life is measured by the strength 
of your will. But the strength of your will is just the 
strength of the wish that lies behind it. 

— Henry van Dyke. 

It is not effort, but fruitless effort, which makes 
work distasteful ; and when we learn to use our powers 
rightly, we will go to our tasks as gladly as bees to 
their honey making. — Bishop Spaulding. 



96 For Thy Good Cheer 

Such was my rule of life ; I worked my best, subject 
to ultimate judgment, God's not man's. 

— Browning. 

I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it 
boldly ; if it be wrong, leave it undone. — Gilpin. 

Avoid the personal view, the small view, the critical 
and fault finding view. Run away from gossip as from 
a pestilence, and keep in your soul great ideals and 
ideals to solace your solitude. They will drive out 
petty worries, conceits and thoughts of carking care. 

— Ada C. Sweet. 

God has not given us vast learning to solve all the 
problems, or unfailing wisdom to direct all the wander- 
ings of our brothers' lives, but He has given to every 
one of us the power to be spiritual, and by our spiritu- 
ality to lift and enlarge and enlighten the lives we touch. 

— Phillips Brooks. 

"Grief sharper sting doth borrow 
From regret : 
But yesterday is gone, and shall its sorrow 
Unfit us for the present and the morrow ? 
Nay; bide a wee, an dinna fret." 

So much love, so much life, — strong, healthy, rich, 
exulting, and abounding life. 

— Ralph Waldo Trine. 




EDWIN MARKHAM 



c 



OME, let us live the poetry we sing. 



96 



For Thy Good Cheer 97 

^— — ■ — — — — — ■ ——————— 1 i. m -i. N i ■ 11 ■ 

PROSPICE. 

Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat, 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the storm, 

The post of the foe : 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go ; 
For the journey is done and the summit attained, 

And the barriers fall, 
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 

The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, 

The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness, and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute's at end, 
And the elements' rage, the fiend- voices that rave, 

Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 

Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 

And with God be the rest ! 

— Browning. 



98 For Thy Good Cheer 



To be well and strong is the rightful portion of every 
human being, and when principles of psychology are 
more generally taught and understood, people will be- 
gin to realize that the time has come for their emanci- 
pation from the dominion of ill health, sickness and 
disease. The dawn is breaking; interest in the True 
Philosophy of life is more manifest every day, and the 
thoughtful person is enquiring what he can do to shape 
his life more intelligently and make it conform more 
to his higher ideals, as well as to secure freedom from 
the ills which flesh is not heir to. 

— Edward H. Cowles. 



For Thy Good Cheer 99 



There is but one good fortune to the earnest man. 
This is opportunity; and sooner or later, opportunity 
will come to him who can make use of it. 

— David Starr Jordan. 

"True greatness never happens. Man can conquer 
physical forces for succeeding generations, but battles 
of the soul no man can fight for another. There is no 
greater victory in life than the victorious old age, but 
it can be attained only by those who have learned to 
conquer in the years of strength and power. They and 
they alone can win the 'consummate triumph.' 

"Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. 
In the assurance of strength there is strength, and they 
are weakest, however strong, who have no faith in 
themselves, or their powers." 



L.cfC. 



ioo For Thy Good Cheer 



Our fathers' God ! from out whose hand 
The centuries fall like grains of sand, 
We meet to-day, united, free, 
And loyal to our land and Thee, 
To thank Thee for the era done 
And trust Thee for the opening one. 

— Wkittier. 



For Thy Good Cheer 101 



AWAY, 

I cannot say, and I will not say 
That he is dead. He is just away! 

With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand 
He has wandered into an unknown land 

And left us dreaming how very fair 
It needs must be, since he lingers there. 

And you — oh, you, who the wildest yearn 

For the old-time step, and the glad return — 

Think of him faring on, as dear 

In the love of There, as the love of Here. 

Think of him still as the same, I say, 
He is not dead — he is just away. 

— James Whitcomb Riley. 



102 For Thy Good Cheer 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

God rest ye, merry gentlemen ; let nothing you dismay, 
For Jesus Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas 

day. 
The dawn rose red o'er Bethlehem, the stars shone 

through the gray, 
When Jesus Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas 

day. 
God rest ye, little children ; let nothing you afright, 
For Jesus Christ, your Savior, was born this happy 

night; 
Along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay, 
When Christ, the child of Nazareth, was born on 

Christmas day. 
God rest ye, all good Christians; upon this blessed 

morn 
The Lord of all Good Christians was of a woman born ; 
Now all your sorrows he doth heal ; your sins He takes 

away, 
For Jesus Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas 

day. — Dinah Mulock Craik. 






For Thy Good Cheer 103 

The individuals whose lives are really valuable never 
ask any one how to make them so. 

— Marie Corelli. 

All history bears witness that when God means to 
make a great man, He puts the circumstances of the 
world and the lives of lesser men under tribute. . . . 
All earnest, pure, unselfish, faithful men who have lived 
their obscure lives well, have helped to make him. 

— Phillips Brooks. 

"Counting the days till Christmas ! 

Sweet days of tender care 
That loved ones may on the blessed morn 

Find longed for treasures fair. 
Thus dreaming, hoping and waiting, 

That holiest day draws near 
When ' Peace on earth, good will to men/ 

Ring out the joy-bells clear. ,, 



c 'Tis not the weight of jewel or plate 

Or the fondle of silk or fur ; 

'Tis the spirit in which the gift is rich, 

As the gifts of the wise ones were ; 

And we are not told whose gift was gold, 

Or whose was the gift of myrrh." 



104 For Thy Good Cheer 

rMTnlili iM i n i CTar^n i i iiiiii um ■■! ■ i ■ » ■■■■■ I 1 1 ■ i mm i i li m — a— — ■— « « n ■■■■ n i iia m i n II 

"Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning, and 
the rest of the day will take care of itself."" 

The only road to advancement is to do your work so 
well that you are always ahead of the demands of your 
position. Our employers do not decide whether we 
shall stay where we are or go on and up; we decide 
that matter ourselves. Success or failure are not 
chosen for us ; we choose them for ourselves. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 

Nothing can work me damage but myself ; the harm 
that I sustain I carry about with me, and I am never a 
real sufferer but by my own fault. 

— St. Bernard. 

People are nearly always nice when one gets to know 
them, and pierces through the outer husks of artifi- 
ciality which they wear before the world. I detest 
heaps of people that I have only met at dinner ; but I 
think I like everybody that I have ever had breakfast 
with. — Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 

Let us learn to be content with what we have. Let 
us get rid of our false estimates, set up higher ideals — 
a quiet home ; vines of our own planting ; a few books 
full of inspiration ; a few friends worthy of being 
loved ; innocent pleasures that bring no pain or sorrow. 

— David Swing. 



For Thy Good Cheer 105 



MY HARVESTS. 

I thought to have gathered many a bloom 

From a rose tree I planted one sweet spring day; 

Ah me ! I forgot 

And watered it not, 
And the soft buds withered away. 

I thought as I looked at my heaped up corn, 

"I will sow it broadcast — this rich golden grain I" 

Ah me ! I let it lay, 

And it withered away, 
And harvest time reaps me no gain. 

I thought that my friend would be mine always ; 
That his hand to my hand would cling close and fast, 

Ah me ! I loosed hold 

On our friendship old, 
And his ringers slipped at last. 

I still wish for roses — my rose tree is dead ; 
I wish still for harvest — and hunger for bread; 
I cry for the old love — the old love is fled ; 
I sowed not — I reaped not — God's judgment is said. 

— L. Hereward. 



io6 For Thy Good Cheer 



A VALENTINE. 

If only I might sing 

Like birds in spring — 
Robin, or thrush, or wren, 

In grove or glen ; 

If only I might suit 

To harp or lute, 
To chime in tender time 

Some touching rhyme, — 

Then I'd hope in vain 

Thine ear to gain ; 
But now — I halt — I quail — 

Ah ! must I fail ? 

So small my skill to plead 

My earnest need, 
Love — love is all the plea 

I bring to thee. — Clinton Scollard. 



For Thy Good Cheer 107 



AS THE BUDDHA DEVOUT DECLARES. 

I sometimes wish it were really so, 

As the Buddha devout declares, 
That the soul at will could easily go, 

From its fleshly sheath unawares, 
Fleetly as we wander in a dream, 

Softly as from buds the roses bloom, 
Or lightly as a golden beam 

Flits in and out a darkened room, 
Then float above the earth world, 

As the clouds in the blue o'er head, 
With the Spirits' wings unfurled, 

Wandering as the impulse led. 

If this fancy quaint were really so, 

As the Buddha devout declares, 
Couldn't you tell where first I would go, 

And steal upon whom unawares ? 
Swiftly as moonlight creeps on the tide, 

Lightly as perfume floats through the air, 
I'd waft myself, dear love, to your side, 

Chasing afar all spectres of care. 

-—Dorothy Quigley. 



io8 For Thy Good Cheer 



Our destiny is our own and it must be worked out — 
perhaps in fear and trembling — in our own way. If 
there be a cherished American doctrine the controlling 
question must be: Is it right? If yea, then let us 
stand by it like men; if nay, have done with it and 
move forward to other issues. 

— William McKinley. 



For Thy Good Cheer 109 

However the battle is ended, 

Though proudly the victor comes 
With fluttering flags and prancing nags 

And echoing roll of drums, 
Still truth proclaims this motto 

In letters of living light — 
No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right. 

Let those who have failed take courage, 

Though the enemy seem to have won, 
Though his rank be strong, if he be in the wrong, 

The battle is not yet done. 
For sure as the morning follows 

The darkest hour of the night, 
No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right. 

O man bowed down with labor, 

O woman young, yet old, 
O heart oppressed in the toiler's breast 

And crushed by the power of gold, 
Keep on with your weary battle 

Against triumphant might ; 
No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



no For Thy Good Cheer 






MY WIFE. 

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, 

With eyes of gold and bramble-dew 

Steel-true and blade-straight 

The great artificer 

Made my mate. 

Honour, anger, valour, fire, 

A life that love could never tire, 

Death quench or evil stir, 

The mighty Maker 

Gave to her. 

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife 
A fellow-farer true through life — 
Heart-whole and soul-free 

The August Father 

Gave to me. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 



For Thy Good Cheer in 

m i . ■ " ' ————— — — i 

Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them 
good citizens. - — Daniel Webster. 

When a man wrongs another, he wrongs himself 
most, and so really is an object of pity, not revenge. 

— Elbert Hubbard, 

Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, 
Seeking the hafdy' soul that seeks for her. 
Swift willed is thrice-willed ; late means never more ; 
Impatient is her foot, nor turns again. 

— James Russell Lowell. 

And so God's miracles go on unseen because of their 
very nearness. It is to the remote we look for a revela- 
tion while all the time it would speak to us from the 
eyes of those who are near us and would voice itself 
through the commonplace world in which we live. 

— Edward Howard Griggs. 

Earth and probably heaven, has nothing better to 
offer us than that thrill, which runs through us when 
we catch fleeting glimpses of the Beautiful and the 
True, and rise superior for the time being to all that is 
sordid and cowardly and mean. For the moment we 
are "pure in heart and see God." 

— Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 

The deeper the feeling the less demonstrative will be 
the expression of it. — Balzac. 



ii2 For Thy Good Cheer 



There is a ship named Sometime ; 

Men dream of it, and wait; 
One on the shore, impatient, 

One at the household gate, 
Thinking : "If it come not in the morn, 

Then in the evening it may." 
But one I knew, not thinking of ships, 

Worked till the close of day, 
Lifting his eyes at evening time, 

There his ship at anchor lay. 

— Irene Hardy. 




THOMAS CARLYLE 



P 



IN thy faith to no man's sleece: hast 
thou not two eyes of thine own? 



For Thy Good Cheer 113 

"Each man contributes his spirit to his town, his 
community, and his home; every woman contributes 
her ideals, her convictions, and her nature to the cheer- 
fulness and courage or the depression and cowardice 
of her society, be it large as the country or limited as 
her home. It is therefore the bounden duty of every 
man and woman to put life, hope, faith into their fel- 
lows by putting these qualities into the common air." 

"A right good thing is prudence, 
And they are useful friends 
Who never make beginnings 
Until they see the ends. 
But give me now and then a man 
And I will make him king, 
Just to take the consequences, 
And just to do the thing." 

I wish that more of us had the courage to be poor ; 
that the world had not gone mad after fashion and 
display ; but so it is, and the blessings we might have 
are lost in the effort to get those which lie outside the 
possible. — Alice Carey. 

I have no answer for myself or thee, 

Save that I learned beside my mother's knee ; — 

All is of God that is or is to be, 

And God is good. — Whittier. 



114 For Thy Good Cheer 



Of Christmas past, let us remember now 
Only the smiles, forgetting all the tears, 
Only the hopes, forgetting all the fears ! 

Life's way is all too long, that we should bow 
Beneath the ancient burdens of dead years. 

Of Christmas in the future, let us speak 
Only with courage, looking for the best ! 
Only with hope, leaving to faith the rest ! 

Life's day is all too short, that we should seek 
To dim its brightness at our own behest. 

And in the present Christmas, let us give 
All help, from care the suffering to release — 
All zeal, to share our happiness and peace ! 

For life is long enough for love to live, 
And short enough for bitterness to cease. 

— C. J elf -Sharp. 



For Thy Good Cheer 115 



THE VOICE OF THE CHRIST-CHILD. 

The earth has grown old with its burden of care, 

But at Christmas it always is young, 
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair, 
And its soul, full of music, breaks forth on the air 

When the song of the angels is sung. 

It is coming, old earth, it is coming to-night ! 

On the snowflakes which cover thy sod, 
The feet of the Christ-child fall gentle and white, 
And the voice of the Christ-child tells out with delight 

That mankind are the children of God. 

On the sad and the lonely, the wretched and poor, 

That voice of the Christ-child shall fall ; 
And to every blind wanderer opens the door 
Of a hope which he dared not to dream of before, 
With a sunshine of welcome for all. 

The feet of the humblest may walk in the field 

Where the feet of the holiest have trod ; 
This, this is the marvel to mortals revealed, 
When the silvery trumpets of Christmas have pealed ; 
That mankind are the children of God. 

— Phillips Brooks. 



n6 For Thy Good Cheer 

Since few large pleasures are lent us on a long lease, 
it is wise to cultivate a large undergrowth of small 
pleasures. — Mary A. Liver more. 

Happiness, like mercy, is twice blessed; it blesses 
those who are most intimately associated in it, and it 
blesses all those who see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or 
breathe the same atmosphere. 

— Kate Douglas Wlggin. 

Frank, generous conversation, with ability to be just 
as pleasant the next moment as if difference of opinion 
had not been expressed, helps each to see his or her 
mistakes, to understand whether he or she is acting 
from love of ambition, from obstinacy or for truth's 
sake. Homes must learn the impersonal art of discus- 
sion which makes the intellect grow, and leaves love 
and belief in others' sincerity untouched. 

— Kate Gannett Wells, 

God's poet is silence, his words are unspoken, 
And yet how profound, how full and how far ! 

It thrills you, and fills you with measure unbroken, 
And as soft and as fair and as far as a star. 

— Joaquin Miller. 

The desire to look back over the past is a sign of age 
and weakness; we need to look forward, and develop 
into what we are capable of becoming. What heights 
are we striving to occupy now ? 

— E. J. Dinsmore. 



For Thy Good Cheer 117 



A PRAYER. 

Dear Lord, kind Lord, 

Gracious Lord ! I pray 
Thou wilt look on all I love 

Tenderly to-day. 
Weed their hearts of weariness ; 

Scatter every care 
Down a wake of angel wings 

Winnowing the air. 

Bring unto the sorrowing 

All release from pain ; 
Let the lips of laughter 

Overflow again ! 
And with all the needy, 

Oh ! divide, I pray, 
This vast treasure of content 

That is mine to-day. 

— James Whitcomb Riley. 



n8 For Thy Good Cheer 



I feel more pity for the people who have waited on 
the bank and caught cold in their hearts and souls 
through standing still too long, than with those who 
have been bruised and buffeted by the full force of the 
stream. — Ellen Thomeycroft Fowler. 



For Thy Good Cheer 119 

No man can conceal himself from his fellows, for 
everything he fashions or creates interprets him. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 

Do not read newspapers column by column ; remem- 
ber they are made for everybody, and don't try to get 
what isn't meant for you. — Emerson. 

A woman lacking true culture is said to betray by 
her conversation a mind of narrow compass, bounded 
on the north by her servants, on the east by her chil- 
dren, on the south by her ailments and on the west by 
her clothes. — Burton Kingsland. 

As I watch men of affairs, I find one set who, as they 
say, make one hand wash another. They are rushing 
round at one o'clock to pick up the funds to pay the 
note which falls due at two. I find another set more 
thoughtful who know to-day what they are to do next 
Friday — know, as they would say, where they shall be 
next Saturday — who are thus prepared in advance for 
any exigency. — Edward Everett Hale. 

"If you are feeling sorry for yourself because life is 
monotonous, you are building the wall higher and 
higher which shuts you from the things you desire. 

"Stop it! 

"Say each morning : 'This is to be an interesting and 
successful day for me.' If it does not prove to be, then 
say it the next morning and the next, until it comes 
true." 



120 For Thy Good Cheer 



One of the commonest and most pardonable of our 
mistakes is in imagining that life can always be at high- 
water mark. The ability to feel strongly any emotion 
depends upon the presence of intervening periods when 
we do not feel. 

It is only at rare intervals we stand upon the heights 
and after each such vision there must be the slow toil- 
ing over the sand-waste and up the mountain slope. 
There are times when we are even compelled to wait 
like Dante during the night, with only the stars of hope, 
faith and love shining down upon us. 

— Edward Howard Griggs. 



For Thy Good Cheer 121 



WHEN THE BIRDS GO NORTH AGAIN. 

Oh, every year hath its winter, 
And every year hath its rain — 

But a day is always coming 
When the birds go north again. 

When new leaves swell in the forest, 
And grass springs green on the plain, 

And the alders' veins turn crimson — 
And the birds go north again. 

Oh, every heart hath its sorrows, 
And every heart hath its pain — 

But a day is always coming 
When the birds go north again. 

'Tis the sweetest thing to remember 

If courage be on the wane, 
When the cold, dark days are over — 

Why, the birds go north again. 

— Ella Higginson. 



122 For Thy Good Cheer 

Submit to what is unavoidable, banish the impos- 
sible from the mind, and look around for some new 
object of interest in life. — Goethe. 

Study, and study hard. But never let the thought 
enter your mind that study alone will lead you to the 
heights of usefulness and success. 

— Grover Cleveland. 

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will 
be strong to live, as well as to think. — Emerson. 

Our opinion of people depends less upon what we 
see in them, than upon what they make us see in our- 
selves. — Sarah Grand. 

The higher the state of civilization, the more com- 
pletely do the actions of one member of the social body 
influence all the rest, and the less possible is it for any 
one man to do a wrong thing without interfering more 
or less with the freedom of his fellow citizens. 

— Huxley. 

Can any summary rule be given more than this: 
Every day and every hour to frame yourself with a 
view to getting over a weakness ? How a person does 
this can only be learned by experience, not, I think, to 
be intruded on by others. — Jowett. 



For Thy Good Cheer 123 



WHEN MY SHIP COMES IN. 

Summer and winter are one to me, 

And the day is bright, be it storm or shine, 
For far away, o'er a sunny sea, 

Sails a treasure vessel, and all is mine. 
I see the ripples that fall away 

As she cleaves the azure waves before ; 
And nearer, nearer, day by day, 

Draws the happy hour when she comes to shore. 
"But what if she never comes ?" you say, 

"If you never the honor, the treasure gain?" 
It has made me happier, day by day, 

It has eased full many an aching pain ; 
It has kept the spirit from envy free, 

Has dulled the ear to the world's rude din. 
Oh ! best of blessing it's been to me, 

To look for the hour when my ship comes in. 

— Whitelaw Reid. 



124 For Thy Good Cheer 



THE CHOICE. 

Only so much of power each day 

So much nerve force brought in play ; 

If it goes for politics or trade, 

Ends gained or money made, 

You have it not for the soul and God. 

The Choice is yours to sow or plod, 

So much water in the rill ; 

It may go to turn the miller's wheel, 

Or sink in the desert, or flow on free 

To brighten its banks in meadows green 

'Till broadening out, fair fields between, 

It streams to the moon-enchanted sea, 

Only so little power each day ; 

Week by week days slide away ; 

Ere the life goes what shall it be 

A trade — a game — a mockery 

Or the gate of a rich eternity? 

— Edward Rowland Sill. 



For Thy Good Cheer 125 

"What I aspired to be, 
And was not, comforts me." 

— Browning. 

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever 
come by caring very much about our own pleasures. 
We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes 
along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts 
and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as 
ourselves. — George Eliot. 

What to us is gibe or frown? 
What have we to cast us down ? 
Soul ! Arise ! assume thy crown : 
Turn thy features from the wall, 
Make the stature grand and tall, 
See, the Lord is over all. 

— Richard Realf. 

All are not just because they do no wrong; 
But he who will not wrong me when he may, 
He is truly just. I praise not them 
Who in their petty dealings pilfer not, 
But him whose conscience spurns a secret fraud, 
When he might plunder and defy surprise ; 
His be the praise who, looking down with scorn 
On the false judgments of the partial herd, 
Consults his own clear heart, and boldly dares 
To be, not to be thought, an honest man. 

— Philemon. 



126 For Thy Good Cheer 



The problem of life is not to make life easier, but to 
make men stronger. — David Starr Jordan. 



For Thy Good Cheer 127 



"Gladness be with the helper of the world." 

If any man would be sound, let him then look to his 
life and consider how he lives ; hived in impure build- 
ings, living chiefly upon animal food, stimulated by in- 
toxicants, a prey to impulse, a participant in an artificial 
society, artificial when compared with his higher 
nature. — Horatio W. Dresser. 

Be it ours to doubt the gloom, and not the glory of 
our souls. — James Martineau. 

We too often forget that not only is there "a soul of 
goodness in things evil," but very generally, also a soul 
of truth in things erroneous, while many admit the 
abstract probability that a falsity has usually a nucleus 
of reality; few bear this abstract probability in mind 
when passing judgment on the opinions of others. 

— Herbert Spencer. 

I apprehend that there is but one way of putting an 
end to our present dissensions ; and that is not the tri- 
umph of any existing system over all others, but the 
acquisition of something better than the best we now 
have. — Channing. 



ia8 For Thy Good Cheer 



Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke 
up the unused path. — Scandinavian Edda. 

Fame without happiness is but a sorry jest at best. 
What matters it to a thirsty man if his empty cup be of 
gold, or silver, or of finest glass ? 

— Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 

In everything that happens is there light; and the 
greatness of the greatest of men has but consisted in 
that they had trained their eyes to be open to every ray 
of this light. — Maurice Maeterlink. 

Speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first 
visible form that it takes. As the thought, so the 
speech. To better one's life in the way of simplicity, 
one must set a watch on his lips and his pen. Let the 
word be as genuine as the thought, as artless, as valid ; 
think justly, speak frankly. — Charles Wagner. 

You are either a magnet that attracts all things 
bright, desirable, healthy and joyous — or one that 
draws all things disagreeable, gloomy, unhealthy and 
destructive. — Dorothy Quigley. 




DAVID STARR JORDAN 



T 



HE clinching of good purposes with 
right actions is what makes the man. 
This higher heredity does not come 
from one's father or mother, but is 
the work of the man on himself. 
128 



For Thy Good Cheer 129 



To-day is your day and mine, the only day we have, 
the day in which we play our part. What our part may 
signify in the great whole, we may not understand, but 
we are here to play it, and now is our time. This we 
know, it is a cynicism. It is for us to express love in 
terms of helpfulness. This we know, for we have 
learned from sad experience that any other source of 
life leads toward decay and waste. 

— David Starr Jordan. 



13° 



For Thy Good Cheer 



"Yea, the earth is generous. The trees 
Strip nude as birth-time without fear, 
And their reward is year by year 
To feel their fullness but increase. 




The law of nature is to give, 
To give, to give ! And to rejoice 
In giving with a generous voice, 

And so, trust God, and truly live." 



For Thy Good Cheer 131 

Weakness on both sides, is we know, the motto of 
all quarrels. — Voltaire. 

Hard may be Duty's hand ; but lo, it leads 
Out into perfect joy, where pain shall cease! 

God sees thy striving, and thy patience heeds ; 
And thou shalt find his peace. 

— Celia Thaxter. 

A little thinking shows us that the deeds of kindness 
we do are effective in proportion to the love we put into 
them. More depends upon the motive than upon the 
gift. If the thought be selfish, if we expect compensa- 
tion, or are guilty of close calculation, the result will be 
like the attitude of mind which invited it. 

— Horatio W. Dresser. 

"If bitterness has crept into the heart in the friction 
of the busy day's unguarded moments, be sure it steal 
away with the setting sun. Twilight is God's interval 
for peacemaking." 

Good impulses and good intentions do not make 
action right or safe. In the long run, action is tested 
not by its motives, but by its results. 

— David Starr Jordan. 



132 For Thy Good Cheer 

"Pessimism is waste of force — the penalty of one 
who knows not how to live." 

The spirit of simplicity is a great magician. It 
softens asperities, bridges chasms, draws together 
hands and hearts. The forms which it takes in the 
world are infinite in number; but never does it seem 
to us more admirable than when it shows itself across 
the fatal barriers of position, interest, or prejudice, 
overcoming the greatest obstacles, permitting those 
whom everything seems to separate to understand one- 
another, esteem one-another, love one-another. This is 
the true social cement that goes into the building of a 
people. — Charles Wagner. 

The little I have seen of the world teaches me to 
look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. 
When I take the history of one poor heart that has 
sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the 
struggles and temptations it has passed through, the 
brief pulsation of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope 
and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, 
I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow man 
with Him from whose hand it came. 

— Longfellow. 

I hold not with the pessimist that all things are ill, 
nor with the optimist that all things are well. All 
things are not ill, and all things are not well, but all 
things shall be well, because this is God's world. 

— Browning. 



For Thy Good Cheer 133 

Strive constantly to concentrate yourself ; never dis- 
sipate your powers; incessant activity, of whatever 
kind, leads finally to bankruptcy. — Goethe. 

It is in every way creditable to handle the yardstick 
and to measure tape; the only discredit consists in 
having a soul whose range of thought is as short as 
the stick and as narrow as the tape. 

— Horace Mann. 

The successful man takes plenty of time for thought. 
He carefully looks the ground over, searches for weak 
and strong points, then adjusts himself to the needed 
conditions. — Horatio W. Dresser. 

When any one has offended me, I try to raise my 
soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. 

— Descartes. 

Great men are the true men, the men in whom nature 
has succeeded. They are not extraordinary, they are 
in the true order. It is the other species of men who 
are not what they ought to be. 

— Amiel's Journal. 

The law of love, upon which all that relates to man is 
founded, declares that it is easier for man to be well 
and happy than to be the reverse. Try to see how 
much easier it is to go with the law than to put yourself 
in opposition to it. — Margaret Stowe. 



134 F° r Thy Good Cheer 



Every new thought relates itself finally to all 
thought, and is like the forward step which continually 
changes the horizon about the traveler. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 



For Thy Good Cheer 135 

"Remember that there is one thing better than mak- 
ing a living — making a life." 

No one is useless in this world who lightens the 
burden of it to anyone else. — Charles Dickens. 

Whate'er it is thou dost not use, will be 
A heavy burden and a load to thee : 
Only from what the present moment springs, 
Created in the present, profit brings. 

— Goethe. 

And now all the paths are free, wherever there is a 
mountain pass or a river- ford ; the roads are all blessed, 
and they are all open and no barriers for those who 
will. — Mrs. Oliphant. 

"I resolved that, like the sun, so long as my day 
lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything." 

You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheer- 
ful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that 
pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is 
gained if you never allow yourself to say anything 
gloomy. —Lydia Maria Child. 

Come over on the sunny side of life. There is room 
there for all and it is a matter of choice. 

— Barnetta Brown. 



136 For Thy Good Cheer 

«■' — ■ ■ ■■ mo———— — — — a— n wiiMii ■!■■ ■ « — ■ ■■ t 11 Mowaeaaa— n ■■ m i 

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue. He 
is nearest to the Gods who knows how to be silent even 
though he is in the right. — Cato. 

Stand close to all, but lean on none, 

And if the crowd desert you, 
Stand just as fearlessly alone 

As if a throng begirt you, 
And learn what long the wise have known — 

Self flight alone can hurt you. 

— William S. Shurtleff. 

"Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparal- 
lelled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before 
you. Achieve, achieve." 

Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that 
shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect. 

— Marcus Aurelius. 

The secret of the man who is universally interesting, 
is that he is universally interested. 

(Said of Dr. Holmes by Howells.) 

And thus looking within and around me ever anew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises 

it too) 
The submission of man's nothing perfect to God's all — 

complete, 
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to His feet. 

— Browning. 



For Thy Good Cheer 137 

Try it for a day, I beseech you, to preserve yourself 
in an easy and cheerful frame of mind. Compare the 
day in which you have rooted out the weed of dissatis- 
faction with that on which you have allowed it to grow 
up, and you will find your heart open to every good 
motive, your life strengthened and your breast armed 
with a panoply against every trick of fate; truly, you 
will wonder at your own improvement. — Richter. 

Stay at home in your mind : 

Don't recite other people's opinions. 

— Emerson. 

Who brings sunshine into the life of another has sun- 
shine in his own. — David Starr Jordan. 

"What right have you, O passer-by-the-way, to cail 
any flower a weed? Do you know its merits, its vir- 
tues, its healing qualities ? Because a thing is common 
shall you despise it? If so, you might despise the sun- 
shine for the same reason." 

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades 
greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of 
better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in 
the present always and took advantage of every acci- 
dent that befell us, like the grass which confesses the 
influence of the slightest dew that falls on it ; and did 
not spend our time in atoning for neglect of past oppor- 
tunities, which we call doing our duty. 

— Thoreau. 



138 For Thy Good Cheer 



"Can a planet wander away even from the power of 
the sun? How, then, can man fall out of the love of 
God?" 

Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, be- 
cause mother of thought. Both are avoided by most 
rich men, who seek company and business, which are 
signs of their being weary of themselves. 

— Sir W. Temple. 

Lenity will operate with greater force, in some in- 
stances, than rigour. It is, therefore, my first wish 
to have my whole conduct distinguished by it. 

— George Washington. 

Learn to be pleased with everything ; with wealth so 
far as it makes us of benefit to others; with poverty, 
for not having much to care for, and with obscurity, 
for being unenvied. — Plutarch. 

"Often our trials act as a thorn hedge to keep us in 
the good pasture ; but our prosperity is a gap through 
which we go astray." 

We ought to acquaint ourselves with the beautiful ; 
we ought to contemplate it with rapture, and attempt 
to raise ourselves up to its height. And in order to 
gain strength for that, we must keep ourselves thor- 
oughly unselfish — we must not make it our own, but 
rather seek to communicate it ; indeed, to make a sac- 
rifice of it to those who are dear and precious to us. 

— Goethe. 



For Thy Good Cheer 139 

"The stars are in the sky all day ; 
Each linked coil of Milky Way, 
And every planet that we know, 
Behind the sun are circling slow. 
They sweep, they climb with stately tread, — 
Venus the fair and Mars the red, 
Saturn engirdled with clear light, 
And Jupiter with moons of white. 
Each knows his path and keeps due tryst; 
Not even the smallest star is missed 
From those wide fields of deeper sky 
Which gleam and flash mysteriously, 
As if God's outstretched ringers must 
Have sown them thick with diamond dust. 
There are they all day long ; but we, 
Sun-blinded, have no eyes to see. 

"I wonder if the world is full 
Of other secrets beautiful, 
As little guessed, as hard to see, 
As this sweet starry mystery? 
Do angels veil themselves in space, 
And make the sun their hiding-place? 
Do white wings flash as spirits go 
On heavenly errands to and fro, 
While we, down-looking, never guess 
How near our lives they crowd and press? 
If so, at life's set we may see 
Into the dusk steal noiselessly 
Sweet faces that we used to know, 
Dear eyes like stars that softly glow, 
Dear hands stretched out to point the way, 
And deem the night more fair than day." 



140 For Thy Good Cheer 



Be a life long or short, its completeness depends 
on what it was lived for. — David Starr Jordan. 

"Give to the world the best that you have, and the 
best will come back to you." 

Be done with saying what you don't believe, and find 
somewhere or other the truest, divinest thing to your 
soul that you do believe to-day, and work that out in all 
the action and consecration of the soul in the doing of 
your work. — Phillips Brooks. 

"The way to keep a man out of the mud is to black 
his boots/' once said Frederick Douglass. "The man 
with soiled shoes does not care where he walks." 

There are nettles everywhere, 
But smooth green grasses are more common still ; 
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



For Thy Good Cheer 141 



Find your niche and fill it. If it be ever so little, if 
it is only to be hewer of wood and drawer of water, do 
something in this great battle for God and truth. 

— Spurgeon. 

Finish every day and be done with it. You have 
done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities 
no doubt, crept in ; forget them as soon as you can. 

—Emerson. 

Are you happy now? Are you likely to remain so 
till this evening, or next month, or next year? Then 
why destroy present happiness by a distant misery 
which may never come at all ? Every substantial grief 
has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your 
own making. — Sydney Smith. 

"Would you have your friend live a better life? Pic- 
ture only that better life in your thoughts of him and 
never by word or look emphasize the opposite." 

What men want is not talent, it is purpose; not the 
power to achieve, but the will to labor. 

— Bulwer Lytton. 

He only is rich who owns the day; and no one owns 
the day who allows it to be invaded with worry and 
fret and anxiety. — Emerson. 



142 For Thy Good Cheer 

"The careless use of other people's names is one of 
the evidences of untrained thought." 

To him who has an eye to see, there can be no fairer 
spectacle than that of a man who combines the posses- 
sion of moral beauty in his soul with outward beauty 
of form, corresponding and harmonizing with the for- 
mer because the same great pattern enters into both. 

—Plato. 

Things without remedy, 

Should be without regard : what's done is done. 

— Shakespeare. 

"If you are an invalid, do your best to get well ; but, 
if you must remain an invalid, still strive for the un- 
selfishness and serenity which are the best possessions 
of health. There are no sublimer victories than some 
that are won on sick beds." 

The twentieth century is going to find the man who 
can do the thing needed exactly. It will not seek for 
kings or nobles. It will find the man who can carry 
the message straight to Garcia. It will not care what 
a man is. Democracy means equality of opportunity. 
It means freedom to rise. But that means freedom to 
fall, socially and otherwise. People cannot be tied up 
in bunches and put on a level. 

— David Starr Jordan. 



For Thy Good Cheer 143 



Let us pity these poor rich men, who live barrenly 
in great bookless houses ! Let us congratulate the poor 
that, in our day, books are so cheap that a man may 
every year add a hundred volumes to his library for 
the price of what his tobacco and beer would cost him. 
Among the earliest ambitions to be excited in clerks, 
workmen, journeymen, and, indeed, among all that are 
struggling up in life from nothing to something, is that 
of owning and constantly adding to a library of good 
books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the neces- 
saries of life. — Henry Ward Beecher. 



144 For Thy Good Cheer 

Most parents attempt to live their children's lives in 
some particular, causing annoyance and perversion all 
'round. —Elbert Hubbard. 

Law is universal, absolute. Every effect has a cause. 
As we sow, we reap. Here are the simple facts of life. 
No striving, no effort of will or thought can escape 
them. We forget that the law of sowing and reaping 
applies not merely to putting the hand into the fire, but 
to the thoughts, the spirit we send out into the world. 

— Horatio W. Dresser. 

We marvel that the silence can divide 

The living from the dead ; yet more apart 

Are they who all life long dwell side by side, 
But never heart by heart. 

— Florence D. Snelling. 

Let your speech be better than silence, or be silent. 

— Dionysius. 

Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites 
by severity. — St. Francis de Sales. 

One of the best methods of rendering study agree- 
able is to live with able men, and to suffer all those 
pangs of inferiority which the want of knowledge 
always inflicts. — Sydney Smith. 

"So long as you can contribute to the pleasure, hap- 
piness, or comfort of any human being, you are of im- 
portance in the world, and no longer." 
and thank God that you are able to leave them. 

—Ephraim Peabody. 




LYMAN ABBOTT 



c 



HRIST comes with JMs message to 
men: Work — not from fear; not for 
food or clothing or shelter; these are 
the mere incidents; work means ser- 
vice, and service means love, and love 
is the highest and greatest thing in 
the world. This puts a new dignity 
into life. 



For Thy Good Cheer 145 



PRAYER— ANSWER. 

At first I prayed for Light : — 

Could I but see the way, 
How gladly, swiftly, would I walk 

To everlasting day! 

And next I prayed for strength : — 

That I might tread the road 
With firm, unfaltering feet and win 

The heavens' serene abode. 

And then I asked for Faith : — 

Could I but trust my God, 
I'd live enfolded in His peace, 

Though foes were all abroad. 

But now I pray for Love : — 

Deep love to God and man ; 
A living love that will not fail, 

However dark his plan : — 

And Light and strength and Faith 

Are opening everywhere ! 
God only waited for me till 

I prayed the larger prayer. 

— Mrs. E. D. Cheney. 



146 For Thy Good Cheer 



UNSPOKEN WORDS. 

'Unspoken words, like treasures in a mine, 

Are valueless until we give them birth ; 
Like unfound gold their hidden beauties shine, 

Which God has made to bless and gild the earth. 
How sad 'twould be to see the Master's hand 

Strike glorious notes upon the voiceless lute ! 
But oh, what pain when, at God's own command, 

A heart-string thrills with kindness, but is mute! 

'Then hide it not, the music of thy soul. 

Dear sympathy expressed with kindly voice, 
But let it like a shining river roll 

To deserts dry — to hearts that would rejoice. 
Oh, let the symphony of kindly words 

Sound for the poor, the friendless, and the weak, 
And He will bless you ! He who struck the chords 

Will strike another when in turn you seek." 



For Thy Good Cheer 147 

This is eternity now; you are sunk as deep in it, 
wrapped as close in it as you ever will be. The future 
is an illusion; it never arrives; it flies before you as 
you advance. Always it is to-day — and after death 
and a thousand years it is to-day. You have great 
deeds to perform and you must do them now. 

— Charles Ferguson. 

It matters not how straight the gate, 

How charged with punishment the scroll : 

I am the master of my fate, 
I am the captain of my soul. 

— Elbert Hubbard. 

It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought 
of man's death hallows him anew to us ; as if life were 
not sacred too — as if it were comparatively a light thing 
to fail in love and reverence to the brother who has to 
climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all our tears 
and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that 
hard journey. — George Eliot. 

Here you stand at the parting of the ways; some 
road you are to take; and as you stand here, consider 
and know how it is that you intend to live. Carry no 
bad habits, no corrupting associations, no enmities arid 
strifes into this New Year. Leave these behind, and 
let the Dead Past bury its Dead; leave them behind, 
and thank God that you are able to leave them. 

— Ephraim Peabody. 



148 For Thy Good Cheer 



FAITH. 

Better trust all and be deceived, 
And weep that trust and that deceiving, 

Than doubt one heart that if believed 
Had bless'd one's life with true believing. 

Oh, in this mocking* world too fast 

The doubting friend o'ertakes our youth ; 

Better be cheated to the last 
Than lose the blessed hope of truth. 

— Frances Anne Kemble. 



For Thy Good Cheer 149 

It is good to be helpful and kindly, but don't give 
yourself to be melted into candle grease for the benefit 
of the tallow trade. — George Eliot. 

I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can 
walk, but after the council of his own bosom. Let him 
quit too much association, let him go home much, and 
establish himself in those courses he approves. 

— Emerson. 

But it may be in a diviner air, 

Transfigured and made pure, 
The harvest that we deemed as wholly lost 

Waits perfect and mature. 
And the faint heart, that now defeated grieves, 
May yet stand smiling 'mid abundant sheaves. 

— Mary L. Ritter. 

Booker Washington tells of a colored man in Ala- 
bama who uttered this prayer: "O, Lord, de cotton 
am so grassy, de work am so hard, and de sun am so 
hot, dat I b'lieve dat dis here darkey am called to 
preach." 

Only weak natures consent to dwell among tomb- 
stones, and the losses of which they are the symbol ; 
the strong drink wisdom and courage from the cup of 
sorrow, and move onward toward light and life. 

— Bishop Spaulding. 



150 For Thy Good Cheer 



Afraid? Of whom am I afraid? 

Not Death ; for who is he ? 
The porter of my father's Lodge 

As much abasheth me. 

Of life ? 'Twere odd I fear a thing 

That comprehendeth me 
In one or more existences 

At Deity's decree. 

Of resurrection? Is the east 

Afraid to trust the morn 
With her fastidious forehead? 

As soon impeach my crown ! 

— Emily Dickinson. 



INDEX TO POEMS 

PAGE 

Turn Not in Vain Regret Frederick L. Hosmer 15 

The Child in the Garden Henry van Dyke 19 

Shasta Frederick L. Hosmer 21 

The Mountain James G. Clarke 21 

Trust 30 

The Four-leaf Clover Ella Higginson 34 

Lincoln Edwin Markham 36 

Waiting John Burroughs 45 

Goodbye Harriet McEwcn Kimball 48 

Night Blanco White 51 

The Flag H. H. Bennett 55 

Laborare est Orare Frances S. Osgood 57 

Twenty-One Frances Hodgson Burnett 60 

A Garden Thomas Edward Brown 64 

If I Could Listen Close Enough 

Elisabeth Ballard Thompson 65 

Mother and Child George MacDonald 73 

A Shrine Alice E. Allen 75 

Courage William Ordway Partridge 77 

The Artisan Alice Brown 79 

Old and New Friends 83 

The Soul of Life Bishop Spaulding 88 

Prospice Browning g7 

Away James Whitcomb Riley 101 

A Christmas Carol Dinah Muloch Craik 102 

My Harvests L. Hereward 105 

A Valentine Clinton Scollard 106 

As the Buddha Devout Declares Dorothy Quigley 107 

Until It Is Settled Right Ella Wheeler Wilcox 109 

My Wife Robert Louis Stevenson no 

Christmas C. Jelf-Sharp 114 

The Voice of the Christ-Child Phillips Brooks 115 

(151) 



1 52 Index to Poems 

PAGE 

A Prayer James White omb Riley 117 

When the Birds Go North Again Ella Higginson 121 

When My Ship Comes In Whitelaw Reid 123 

The Choice Edward Rowland Sill 124 

The Stars Are in the Sky 139 

Prayer—Answer Mrs. E. D. Cheney 145 

Unspoken Words 146 

Faith Frances Anne Kemble 148 

Afraid ? Emily Dickinson 150 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 

PAGE 

Abbott, Lyman 32, 47, 70 

Alger, William 72 

Allen, Alice E 75 

Ames, Charles G 82 

Amiel's Journal 133 

Aurelius, Marcus 136 



Bellamy, Francis 4 

Browning 7, 16, 17, 96, 97, 125, 132, 136 

Benton, M. A. E 9 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 11, 85, 140 

Barrows, Samuel J 14 

Beecher, Henry Ward 22, 39, 95, 143 

Brooks, Phillips 28, 32, 38, 49, 53, 96, 103, 115, 140 

Balzac 29, 1 1 1 

Brown, Anna Robertson 40, 76 

Burroughs, John 45 

Bennett, H. H 55 

Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson 60 

Brown, Thomas Edward 64 

Brown, Alice 79 

Brown, Charles R 86 

Brooke, Stopf ord A 89 

Bernard, St 104 

Brown, Barnetta 135 



Carlyle 18, 74, 95 

Clarke, James G 21 

Chesterfield, Lord 22 

Carruth, William Herbert 87 

Cockran, Bourke 89 

(153) 



154 Index to Authors 

PAGE 

Cowles, Edward H 98 

Craik, Dinah Muloch 102 

Corelli, Marie 103 

Carey, Alice 113 

Cleveland, Grover 122 

Channing 127 

Child, Lydia Maria 135 

Cato ^ 136 

Cheney, Mrs. E. D 145 

Drummond, Henry 28 

Dresser, Horatio W 62, 66, 78, 127, 131, 133, 144 

Daniels, E. J 71 

Dinsmore, E. J 116 

Descartes 133 

Dickens, Charles 135 

Dionysius 144 

Dickinson, Emily 150 

Emerson. .6, 16, 22, 43, 47, 49, 53, 59, 85, 89, 119, 122, 137, 141, 149 

Eliot, George 27, 76, 125, 147, 149 

Epictetus 28, 29 

Everest, Flora G 91 

Ferguson, Charles 16, 147 

Franklin, Benjamin 58 

Fiske, John 62, 68 

Fowler, Ellen Thorneycroft 82, 93, 104, in, 118, 128 

Frick, Rhoda Tucker 87 

Frothingham, N. L .90, 104 

Gannett, William C. 25 

Griggs, Edward Howard 32, 68, in, 120 

Goethe 35, 43, 44, 46, 66, 89, 122, 133, 135, 138 

Gilpin 96 

Grand, Sarah 122 

Hosmer, Frederick L 15, 21 

Hale, Edward Everett 27, 58, 119 

Higginson, Ella 34, 121 

Helps, Sir Arthur 47, 76 

Haskell, Mabel Percy 61 



Index to Authors 155 

Hubbard, Elbert. 61, 66, in, 144**47 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell 90 

Hereward, L I0 ~ 

Hardy, Irene . 112 

Huxley . 122 

Howells 1 36 

Ingelow, Jean I4 

Irving, Washington 53 

Jackson, Helen Hunt 24 

Jordan, David Starr.43, 58, 68, 86, 99, 126, 129, 131, 137, 140, 142 
Jowett 122 



Kimball, Harriet McEwen 48 

Kingsley, Charles 74 

Klingle, George 82 

Knapp, Adeline 93 

Kingsland, Burton 119 

Kemble, Frances Anne 148 



Lowell, James Russell 16, 47, 92, in 

Longfellow 17, 27, 70, 132 

Locke 35 

Lanier, Sidney 94 

Livermore, Mary A 116 

Lytton, Bulwer 141 



Mabie, Hamilton Wright 14, 17, 18, 24, 68, 81, 104, 119, 134 

Milton, John 17 

Muir, John 20 

Miller, J. R 29 

McLean, J. K 32 

Markham, Edwin 36, 37, 58, 80 

MacDonald, George 73 

McKinley, William 95, 108 

Miller, Joaquin 116 

Martineau, James 127 



i56 



Index to Authors 



PAGE 

Maeterlink, Maurice 128 

Mann, Horace 133 



Newcomb, Charles B 29, 39 



Osgood, Frances S 57 

Oliphant, Mrs 135 



Parker, Theodore 84 

Partridge, Ordway William yy 

Philemon 125 

Plutarch 138 

Plato 142 

Peabody, Ephraim 144, 147 



Quigley, Dorothy 93, 107, 128 



Ruskin 32, S3 

Rollins, Alice Wellington 35 

Roosevelt, Theodore 54, 76, 85, 93 

Riley, James Whitcomb 87, 101, 117 

Reid, Whitelaw 123 

Realf, Richard 125 

Richter 137 

Ritter, Mary L 149 



Spurgeon 141 

Smith, Sidney 141, 144 

Snelling, Florence D 144 

Spencer, Herbert 127 

Sharp, C. Jelf- 114 

Stevenson. Robert Louis 18, 28, 66, no 

Scollard, Clinton 106 

Sales de, St. Francis 70, 144 

Sweet, Ada C 18, 96 



Index to Authors 157 



PAGE 

Sherman, Frank Dempster 24 

Sill, Edward Rowland 27, 124 

Smith, Robert 40 

Stowe, Margaret 47, 133 

Seneca 49 

Savage, Minot J 49, 59, 67 

Stebbins, Horatio 63 

Story, W. W 68 

Stone, Margaret 74 

Spaulding, Bishop 88, 95, 149 

Shakespeare 93, 95, 142 

Swing, David 104 

Shurtleff 136 

Thoreau 27, 66, 137 

Tennyson 28, 53 

Thackeray 32 

Tenney, E. P 47 

Thompson, Elizabeth Ballard 65 

Trine, Ralph Waldo 96 

Thaxter, Celia 131 

Temple, Sir William 138 

Van Dyke, Henry 19, 40, 66, 86, 95 

Van Ness, Thomas 39 

Voltaire 131 

Whitney, A. D. T 14, 61 

Willard, Frances 24 

Wagner, Charles 26, 59, 62, 85, 128, 132 

Whitman, Walt 35, 69 

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler 40, 58, 62, 70, 109 

Wordsworth, William 40, 7® 

Wendte, Charles W 43 

Wilson, R. E 44 

Wood, Henry 44, 84, 90 

White, Blanco 51 

Whittier 61, 100, 113 

Wheeler, Benjamin Ide 90 

Webster, Daniel 111 



158 Index to Authors 

PAGE 

Wiggin, Kate Douglas 116 

Wells, Kate Gannett 116 

Washington, George 138 



Young 74 

Zimmerman, N. W 42 



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